


Focus

by Screwyy



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Chapter 5 and there will be a warning beforehand, Evil Steven, Gen, Kinda, Recovery, Some Timeskips, Spoilery Tags - Freeform, aka gems work a little differently, aka youll see 14 year old stevo and then mostly 16 year old stevo, dont let my name fool you, fears of non-con without anything happening, fluffy ending tho i got chu, indirect and brief suicide thoughts, powers au, some slice of life, youve been warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:53:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25939969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Screwyy/pseuds/Screwyy
Summary: Steven finally finds his full gem powers, his Focus,and stands confronted with a part of himself he thought he could keep buried forever.This can’t be him. ...Right?
Relationships: Connie Maheswaran & Steven Universe
Comments: 40
Kudos: 63





	1. Chapter 1

“But it’s really cool! I want my eyes to glow too!”

14-year-old Steven sits in Garnet’s lap. Amethyst is sifting through the fridge while Pearl is drying the dishes. She turns to Steven.

“The eyes are just an indicator, Steven. Our eyes glow when we enter our energized state.”

Garnet nods. “We also call it, being focused, in a sense.“

Amethyst turns around. “Aw, are you guys telling him about rage mode?”

Steven perks up with starry eyes. “Rage mode?!”

Pearl rolls her eyes. “Yes, well, that’s what Amethyst calls it. It’s not very accurate.”

Amethyst shrugs. “I think it is.”

Steven turns to look up at Garnet. “I want rage mode tooooo!”

“The state is different for each gem. Back on Homeworld, gems are in this state constantly. It helps them not stray from their given purposes.”

Steven goes quieter, growing a bit more serious as he feels Garnet telling him something of importance. She goes on.

“Homeworld gems that are focused, mindlessly complete their tasks. If they ever go unfocused, they have technology to force a gem back into that state. Only then can we use our weapons.”

“But you’re not mindless when you fight, are you?”

Garnet smiles a bit. “No. Your mother taught us how to take control of that state. Once we recognized our worth, Homeworld’s programming could no longer control us.”

“That’s so cool… You think I can do it?”

Pearl finishes drying, starting to put the dishes away. “We’re not sure yet. Maybe one day you will.”

“I’m already 14, and it’s never happened before!”

Amethyst cuts in, tossing herself on the couch next to them. “Oh, don’t worry, it took me like, 50 years till I got it for the first time! It feels great! You get super strong and powerful and I can summon my whip and be AWESOME!”

“50 years?! Aw… but, what made it happen for you?”

“I found a corrupted gem! Well, okay, more like, it found me. I was with Rose, so nothing would have happened, but I just kinda felt like I had to do something. Like, protecting her and Pearl and Garnet was just, right! And then I could do it!”

“Woah… wait, I’m like, a Quartz too, right? Would that work for me? Garnet?”

Garnet’s face expression falters a bit. “Maybe. But you’ll have to get older first.”

“Aw.. Can’t I come along on missions? Maybe that’ll help?”

Pearl put the last plate back in the cupboards. “You’re too young for missions. Maybe once you’re more ready, we’ll think about it.”

“But that could take forever!”

Garnet ruffles through his hair with one hand affectionately. “Don’t worry. You’ll be there before you know it.”

\---

“Amethyyyst! Amethyst?” Steven walks through the house, holding a mug of dark liquid. 

It was chocolate milk mixed in with two kinds of sirup, melted chocolate and a thickener powder he found in the kitchen. Amethyst is usually good at telling what’s edible and what isn’t without getting sick, and if he got sick, Pearl wouldn’t let him experiment with food again like this for a while.

He wondered if she had warped somewhere, but at least the temple symbol indicated she wasn’t in her room for sure. He walks outside the house, and sees a familiar purple blob on the beach.

He runs down, seeing Amethyst charge at a rock with her whip, wrapping around it and tossing it over and into the ocean with a huge splash. A snorting laughter sounds from her.

“Amethyst!” Steven runs up to her, and she turns around.

Her eyes are a powerful, glowing purple, recognizable as shedding light despite the bright summer sun. 

Steven stops. “Ohhhh… Your eyes… Are you like, focused…?”

Amethyst pounces on him, and he barely manages to save the mug of experiments as she playfully tackles him to the ground, perhaps a bit rougher than usual.

“Amethyst! I need you to taste test this for me.”

He holds the mug to her face, and she pauses, looking down at it. 

She stands up. “Egh. Nah.” 

“But…”

She isn’t really listening, getting out a second whip and tackeling another rock on the beach.

“But Amethyst! You gotta, then I can-”

“I don’t gotta do NOTHING!” She slams two rocks against eachother, sending splinters everywhere. She’s panting, sweating with exertion. 

The anger in her voice makes Steven pause. He takes a few steps back to give her space, and hits something with his back that wasn’t there before.

He turns around and looks up. Garnet. She silently picks him up and sets him on her head.

“Garnet!” 

She starts to move back to the house, and Steven shifts. “Where are we going? I need Amethyst to taste test this.”

“Amethyst needs some time to cool down.”

“Awwhh… is it cause her eyes are glowing?”

“Gems have the gem hierarchy coded into them when they’re focused. She isn’t going to listen to anyone who can’t defeat her in battle right now.”

“But she tackled me! Like, without hurting me. It’s still her, right?”

“In a way, yes.” Garnet steps into the house setting Steven down on the ground. “When we focus, the state makes different parts of us bigger than others.”

“So she’s liiiike… running on instinct?”

“She’s living out what she wants without thought to the consequences. That’s what focus does, and gems are made to only then be capable of using their weapons, and some abilities.”

“I thought Homeworld didn’t want gems to do what they want?”

“It’s not the same as what a gem really wants. It’s what Homeworld taught a gem they think they want. In a way, they want to be what they were made for. It’s different.”

Steven stares down at the mug of thick dark liquid.

“How about I test it instead?”

Steven looks up at her with joy, holding the mug up to her as high as he can.

“Yes please!”

\---

Clouds pass over and around the sky arena. Connie raises her sword for strike after strike. Bismuth and Pearl stand near as they watch, with Pearl continuing to give Connie tips and directions.

Next to an unsure Lapis sits a grinning Peridot, occasionally shyly glancing over to the blue gem. Lapis pretends to ignore her, watching the fight, sometimes looking to the sky and sinking into thoughts of going far, far away from this place.

16-year-old Steven sits not too far from them, too focused on the fighting to see the two gems interact. Finally, Connie dispells the holopearl with a coordinated strike. It buzzes something about level 21 and then dissapears.

She leans on her sword, and Pearl congratulates her on her progress. Steven gets up to join the group.

“Connie! That was amazing!”

She blushes a bit and lets out a giggle. “Thanks! I’m finally nearing level 22! If we ever have to fight for earth, I can be right there to help!”

Pearl smiles, pride swelling in her chest. “You sure can! We’ve got it covered for now, but you can never know. Besides, all living beings have the right to learn to defend themselves.”

Bismuth nods. “It’s astonishin what humans can do, even without gems to power them.”

Steven feels a small twist in his stomach, looking down to glance at where he knows his gem is beneath his shirt, and then looking back to Connie. She’s leaning on her sword as she rests, but she’s smiling.

Pearl eagerly agrees. “It is! Organic or not, she’s made a surprising amount of progress. With that kind of sword fighting, she could even fight gems.”

Steven rolls around the thought he’s had while watching Connie train for the entire past week. She’d been training for 2 years now, but with every time he watched her get better, an unfamiliar feeling rose into his throat: Jealousy. He has his healing powers, certainly, and he’s the only one who knows how to talk a gem down when nobody else can. But that’s not really power, or at least, it doesn’t feel like it. But if Connie can learn to be useful without a gem, why can’t he learn to be useful despite having a gem?

“Pearl?”

“And we- Oh. Yes, Steven?”

“I know the first time you taught me how to fight I couldn’t take anything seriously, but… Can we try again? I’ll do better this time, I promise!”

Connie looked at him with a bit of surprise, and Pearl contemplated for a moment. “Don’t you think we should wait until you learn to focus? I thought Garnet was helping you with that.”

“She has been, kindof? But, I want to be useful now! Who knows how long my powers will take. They might never awaken fully, you know?”

“Well… Hmmm… It’s just, I know you don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“I don’t, but can’t I fight in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone? To protect?”

“Well, no matter what weapon you fight with, you’re going to have to stab or swing it at your opponent. If you make it clear you’re always missing on purpose, you’re going to lose.”

Steven sighs a little. She knows him too well, but something keeps pushing him. “Can I try, at least?”

“Well… alright, sure. It can’t hurt to try, and you’ll have to learn the basics at some point, eventually.”

She pulls a training sword out of her gem and hands it to him. “Start with this.”

He holds the sword unsurely, and Pearl goes on to correct his grip and his stance. Connie gives him a thumbs up, and her and Bismuth give them some space.

Pearl’s eyes glow briefly as she focuses, hesitating a moment while she formulates the purpose of her powers and summons a new holo pearl, complete with a sword. The glow subsides, and her neutral face expression once more turns to a smile.

“We’ll start slow, like with all things new. Here, stand like this.”

She adjusts his stance, holding the sword with her hand as well to lead it. The holo pearl steps closer, and the swords give a clang as they fall against eachother.

And the basics go fine, the first week or so. Well, the thrusts are slow, but Pearl eagerly keeps praising and correcting him. Something deeply unsure remains in his stance, and there’s an amount of hesitation before every single move.

With time, as he learns what strikes the holo pearl can block and which it can’t, he grows the slightest bit more confident, swords clashing against eachother with more force.

But he never wins. Eventually, the holo pearl takes an oppertunity, and disarms or points it at him or the holographic blade goes through his body. It doesn’t leave any damage, but Steven knows when it happens.

He heaves a deep sigh as the holo pearl once more steps back. “Opponent defeated.”

He drags himself back to where Pearl and Bismuth are sitting. Nobody else is in the sky arena today.

“Sorry.” He muffles, sitting down.

“Don’t worry about it, Steven. There’s no need to apologize. You got a lot further than I thought! We just have to keep moving foreward.” 

He glances at Pearl as she enthusiastically keeps talking.

“I know, it can be difficult to spot the right oppertunities at the start. How about I modify the holo pearl some more and get them one level lower? Not because you’re not that good! But because you’ll have the upper hand, instead of more of an even opponent.”

“I don’t know…"

“You had a good oppertunity before falling backwards there, when the holo pearl hadn’t turned to you fully yet… but it all happens very quickly! That’s okay. You just need more practice to get a better eye for these things and-”

“I can’t!” He bursts out, finally, cutting her off.

Pearl stops, looking at him with a bit of worry.

He sighs, giving the sword back to her with both hands. “I know. I saw the oppertunity. But I can’t.” He looks down at his hands as Pearl takes the sword. “I’m sorry.”

Pearl looks at him, worried. “Oh, Steven…”

Bismuth has a similar look on her face, but she tries to improve the atmosphere. “Hey, listen. You’re already pretty strong. You don’t need to fight anyone, you’ve proven that time and time again. With me, with Lapis, with Peridot… Just leave the fighting to us, and we’ll leave the other important stuff to you.”

“I just… wish I could do something. More.”

She places a hand on his shoulder reassuringly. “You already do a lot for us, Steven. You do something that none of us can. But fighting? Anybody can learn to stab someone. Not everyone can learn to have the patience that you have, though.”

“Everyone can learn fighting, except me…” He shakes his head. “Sorry I’m so… Eh, it’s okay. I don’t need to fight, I’ll just… Do what I always do.” He forces a smile, unable to bear their worried faces much longer.

Bismuth thinks, trying to figure something out. Rose always fought with a sword. She had Bismuth make it, and only knowing that it only poofs the light forms of gems is what made her keep it so well, what made her willing to use it. Steven wouldn’t be doing more than that, but at the same time he doesn’t know what loosing your light form is like. He can only compare it to what being slashed at would feel like to him, and that’s a very, very different experience.

Bismuth lets out a soft gasp as she perks up. “Oh my Stars- Pearl!”

“What?”

“Rose chose to fight with a sword, but _her weapon_ was a shield!”

Pearl thinks for a moment, then grows a little more enthusiastic herself. “Steven, you said you want to fight to protect others, right?”

“Well, yeah! And, maybe… stand my ground longer?”

“Then… Bismuth, you’re right. He doesn’t need a sword.”

Bismuth lets out a bright laugh. “I’m a genious, I know. Now lets make you somethin that suits _you._ ”

A shield it was. Now, over the weeks, he would learn to block, to dodge, having the holo pearls trying to strike or disarm him while he defended himself. And eventually, that added up into Stevonnie, fighting with both a sword and a shield.

\---

Lapis showed up at the house rather unprecedented. Steven walked downstairs to find her standing in the kitchen.

“Steven! There you are. You have to help.”

“What is it?”

“Peridot’s- you know, focused again.”

“Oh… what happened?”

“I think… she might’ve been tampering with gem tech?”

“Tampering with gem tech…?”

He thinks. Would Peridot really make a mistake like that? It took them weeks to initially get her out of her focused state for the first time, to make her finally see things for herself. 

“Peridot knows what she’s doing, she wouldn’t just… unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Oh no. You think she was trying to get control of it? You know how she feels about her focus state giving her more orders and, like, no powers.”

“Huh, I hadn’t thought of that…” Lapis shrugs a little. “Probably.”

“Hokay. Let’s go there and see if we can snap her out of it.”

Lapis nods. “Right.”


	2. Chapter 2

The starry sky floats high above the group of gems. Steven lays in the grass, looking upwards, while the others are preparing the grill and chatting away happily. Connie would get here soon, but that could take another half hour.

To his surprise, he finds Garnet laying down next to him. “Garnet?”

“Stargazing?”

“Yeah, I just thought to leave the stuff to you guys. Unless you need help with something.”

“No, we’re good.”

“Okay.”

He went quiet again, staring up at the sky. Philosophical thoughts tug at his mind, and finally, he breaks the silence.

“Do you ever miss being… focused all the time? I mean, it’s a different state to be in. It’s a different you. A stronger you.”

“Hmm. No.”

Steven goes quiet again, looking at the stars, and Garnet goes on. “Rose is the one who showed us that, though. Just like you showed them.”

“Show them what, exactly? I mean- I try to get gems to kindof see things for themselves.”

“Your mother helped us out of that state, and helped us realize that we were, as she said... flowers, in a way. The petals are closed, and when we are no longer focused and let our guard down, the flower can open and show all of it’s beauty.”

“...even if it’s more vulnerable that way?”

“Eeexactly.”

“But what’s it like?”

“You’re yourself. But at the same time, you’re not.”

“I just don’t… I’ve seen it so often, but… it’s like gems turn into someone else. They have all of their memories, but they just suddenly think of them differently.”

He sighs, going on quieter. “Is it… scary?”

Garnet is quiet for a long time before answering. “Yes. Until we gain control of it and break the bonds, it is. Fusions aren’t forced to focus. But Ruby and Sapphire had to individually learn to break the chains.”

“But you also still had Garnet. You knew what it’s like.”

“Yes. And we had Rose to make us feel it was okay to open ourselves to her.”

Garnet gets up after another moment of silence. She smiles a little. “Don’t worry, Steven. You’ll get to explore that part of yourself eventually.”

She goes off, back to the others, and Steven is left staring at the sky, left with a distant aftertaste of fear. All the gems he’s met in that state tried to kill him. Not even the gems can properly respond to anyone when they’re in a fight, using their powers. What could that feel like? To be so… powerless?

An opening flower makes sense. But a closing flower? Why would he want to close?

The stars, the void stares back at him, leaving his questions unanswered, simply observing him from their galactic thrones.

He hears the van in the distance, and sits up. Connie’s here. Ruffeling the grass out of his hair and getting up, he decides to focus on that, instead.

\---

Pearl and Garnet both sat on chairs while the rest of the Crystal Gems sat on the couch. Peridot and Lapis sat near eachother more calmly now. Bismuth curiously watched Pearl and Garnet, unsure what all this meant. Amethyst was trying to distract Steven by shapeshifting her finger into a pen.

Pearl clears her throat a little, and all eyes go on her.

“N-now, as you certainly all know… I… well, like all of us, I’ve been perfecting my control of my own powers, and um…” She looks over to Garnet, who sits motionlessly. Pearl knows that means she’s usually near the edge and about to either do something or blurt something out. “I only managed to get full control more recently, about a few weeks ago? Which, doesn’t sound like the biggest achievement...”

Bismuth cut in. “What! Of course it’s an achievement! Pearl, you’re the first pearl to get out like that! Homeworld is cruel. And you still defeated them in your heart to become someone they never thought you could be.”

Pearl lets out a small laugh, blushing. “Well, you’re all already past yours…”

“Well, we were programmed with use in mind, order second.” Her voice softens. “Of course it would be harder for you. Besides. Lapis and Peri still got a long way to go.”

Lapis crosses her arms. “Not that long.” She says flatly.

Peridot copies the gesture, but sounds much more eager. “Yeah!”

Pearl lets out a soft sigh, glancing to Garnet, who still sits frozen still. So she continues. “That’s… not what I brought you here for, though. Well, I managed to…” She breathes out. Concentrates. “I managed to push past an old order that… had been placed on me.”

Bismuth leans in a bit, while Garnet tilts her head to stare at her knees. Steven and Amethyst exchange a slightly worried glance.

Pearl clears her throat again. “I… How do I…” It’s no use. With everyone looking at her, with knowing how long she’d been keeping this… lie… How could she destroy everything they’ve always known? “Garnet…? Some help?” She asks quietly towards the fusion.

Garnet doesn’t respond. 

Bismuth looks the fusion up and down. “Garnet, you okay there?”

She moves to shake her head, stops, nods, then lets out a frustrated sound uncharacteristic for her, and falls to pieces.

Pearl jerks up. “Garnet! Oh no, I’m so sorry…!”

Ruby kicks the table, hard. “IT’S ALWAYS BEEN A LIE AND YOU’RE NOT EVEN MAD!”

Cold ice begins to cover the room as Sapphire walks towards the warp pad, ignoring Ruby alltogether.

Ruby kicks the table again, then stops. “SAPPHIRE!” Her anger starts to fade, going into worry, desperation. “Where are you going?!”

Sapphire looks down. “Why would you need to know?”

The warp pad goes off.

“SAPPHIRE!” Ruby runs to the warp pad, grasping the cold surface with her hands, her gem clinking against the material. Tears run down her face as she curls up on the warp pad like she’s never going to move anywhere else ever again.

Bismuth looks to Pearl, now much, much more worried. “Pearl…?”

Pearl clutches both her hands over her mouth, trying to hold back her own tears. Amethyst and Steven run to Ruby to calm her down while Lapis and Peridot watch Bismuth unsurely.

Silence accompanies Ruby’s sobs until the red gem suddenly raises a gauntlet fist, slamming it into the warp pad. “SHE LIED TO US! SHE LIED TO US!”

Her yell, her scream echoes in the house while Bismuth holds on to Pearl to soothe their own worries.

Steven and Amethyst had both flinched back from Ruby when her eyes had flared with fire, but the fire dissapates and she once more curls up on the smooth surface. 

They both look to Pearl as well, unsure what to do now.

Pearl takes a deep breath. She has to. It’s too late to turn back now, and they deserve to know.

“Rose… Rose Quartz wasn’t… who you think she was.”

She cringes at her word choice. That’s now how she meant it, but how else would she put it?

Everyone looks to her, eagerly listening. Amethyst puts a hand on Ruby’s shoulder to reassure her at least a bit.

“Rose was… Well, you know how Pink Diamond fought against her, and how, the beta kindergarden was rushed and despite Homeworld’s efforts, she never won?”

She goes on. “That’s… That’s because there was no Rose fighting Pink.”

Bismuth looks at Pearl, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Rose… Rose  _ was _ Pink.”

Bismuth’s voice is hollow. “...What?” Disbelieving. Like she didn’t hear right.

“Pink Diamond found the beauty of earth, but… the other diamonds never listened to her. So she decided to fight.” Pearl’s voice grows a bit quieter, softer. She looks down. “I was her Pearl. She told me to keep her secret. Forever.”

Bismuth squeezes Pearl a bit tighter with her one hand on her arm. Amethyst glances between everyone, more concerned for them, Ruby sobs louder. Peridot seems to be intensely concentrating as she reconsiders what she knows, and Lapis has her shoulders hunched up, listening to Peridot’s murmurs as they begin to recontextualize.

Bismuth looks like she’d run out of air, or been frozen solid. 

Steven shares the initial reaction. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She wasn’t a Quartz. She wasn’t this flawed but well intentioned Quartz with no choice, who mastered her powers of focusing for the very first time. She lied to everyone, just like she lied about Bismuth. She was a diamond.

That, in of itself made his head spin a bit. He had to think of everyone else, too. Someone being a diamond can’t mean more to him than it means to them. They’ve served diamonds before, after all, fought a war against them. Surely they’re more upset. He just has to concentrate on them, instead. He feels himself calm a bit, looking to the others to see how they’re doing.

He feels like he’s missing something, and he meets eyes with Bismuth looking at him with an emotion he can’t quite place, until it hits. He’s a diamond. He’s half diamond. He has a diamond embedded in his body.

Pearl has tears in her eyes, voice weak but ever so slightly relieved. “I’ve wanted to tell you for so long…”

Steven stared at his hands, feeling like he wanted to shrink into himself. Suddenly he thought about what would have happened if Garnet had managed to draw his Focus out sooner. What would that have looked like?

He thought of Jasper, the terrifying, orange-red glow of her eyes, illuminated green from the space ship. He shudders. What are diamond’s focus like? He remembers the pictures in the books Pearl used to teach him gem history. Their eyes are different. If he’d have gotten his focus sooner, everyone would have seen the diamonds in his eyes. What would that state be like?

Everything he thought he’d finally figured out about himself was a lie. He was never who he thought he was. Of course he wasn’t.

He tried to shake the thought, looking to everyone else. Ruby. Sapphire. He stands up, and the gems eyes follow him. He banishes every thought about what that meant for him somewhere deep into the back of his head. It doesn’t matter. What matters is how they feel. They knew her, at least. He didn’t.

“Pearl, we gotta find Sapphire.”

Bismuth regards him with a strange look, exchanging a look with Pearl. Pearl looks to him, wiping the tears away and nodding. “Right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *clapping* Shit! Is! Pick! Ing! Up!


	3. Chapter 3

He stared at the picture again. Four diamond murals, all with the same, hyper detailed eyes with those star-like diamonds as pupils. They looked absolutely terrifying, and knowing how much Homeworld loved strength and the use of fear, that was probably the intention.

He remembered when they’d first met Peridot. The way her eyes glowed brighter when she spoke of how perfect the diamonds are, how flawles, how amazing, how  _ powerful _ . Cold, objectively better, and yet, cruel in the most terrifying, logical way possible.

He clutches the page tighter. Everything had calmed down the past few days, but thoughts continued to spin in his head. It’s a good thing, he thinks, that he never got his Focus state. He’ll never get his true powers, or gem weapon. He’s glad to have his healing liquid and he can just learn to use the shield. And it’ll be fine. Forever.

He stares at those terrifying glowing eyes, and closes the book. No. That’s not him, it’s never going to be. If he had never known about this, he’d never have noticed anything. What does it matter if he’s a Quartz or a Diamond? She didn’t care. Why would he?

He almost lets out a short, pained laugh before gulping it down. No. No! He’s not like them. He’s nothing like them. It’s not like he’s one of them and has the potential to be just as terrifying. It’s not like his gem could force him into a focus state at any moment. That’s ridiculous. 

It’s not like he started training because he desperately, desperately wanted to no longer be thrown around by enemy gems like a ragdoll. Because he wanted to hit back for once. It’s not like he couldn’t harm that holo pearl because he was terrified of how it would feel to fight back for once, terrified that it might feel good, terrified that he might like it. That he would find out he’s a monster.

And if he found that out, what then? Would he strive to do it more? Would he crave it? The thought was terrifying. It made him shiver, made him want to lock himself in his room and lie on the floor until he forgot about it all.

He thought, at least, his gem would be his foundation. The one thing that grounded him in something good, something special, grounded him as someone who would always return to do the right thing eventually. It’s been a lie. His gem would grab him and trip him into the darkness at the slightest chance.

He never really did let go. He never let himself waver, always keeping himself to the rules he built himself, the rules that made up his compassion. 

Everyone else is always more important. Everyone else can change. Everyone else can get better. So long as he has those, everything is fine. What if he steps away from them, and can never step back? What if the others find out he’s not some perfect angel, just someone desperately clinging to the compassion he once learned?

He shifted, face going from a pained grin to a frown to frustration, unsure how to feel. His chest hurts, but he breathes in sharply, sitting up, forcing a smile on his face.

He puts the book away. It’s fine. Everything is  _ just _ fine.

\---

Malachite had snapped Jasper out of her order state. Certainly she remained here to take revenge on “Rose Quartz”, but she knows. She can’t return, not like this. She’s unfocused. Focusing would mean following her last order and returning to Yellow Diamond, however, and Jasper wasn’t going to let that happen.

The harsh, hot dune winds sweep over the desert. The beta kindergarden isn’t far from here, along with that warp pad. Jasper kicks a rock in her way. Ever since that Peridot joined them, they’d been able to reroute the warp pads to only work for their little group. The warp pads that she helped build. The warp pads that  _ her diamond _ built.

Rage flourishes beneath the surface, but she had revenge to take. An order to follow that nobody had ever truly asked of her, but something told her was right anyway. If the diamonds knew Rose was here, they’d do the same thing. She’s sure of it.

The cliffside of the beta kindergarden stopped her thoughts, and she jumped down into the creak. She was hoping to find some intact injectors around here somewhere.

She wasn’t made for machinery, but she’d do anything for her revenge. Anything to show those off-colors how lost and disoriented and  _ weak _ they are. That she can defeat them, even in her unfocused state. Even if it meant being weaker for the time being.

The sandy creak sloped and looped into the distance, the winds sweeping up enough sand to create a mild sandstorm, just a few particles here and there. It didn’t bother Jasper in the slightest.

She walked along the curved walls, studying the exit holes. All defects. Well, most of them. She keeps walking. As long as she keeps her mind on track, she’ll be able to return to her post and focus with no issue. But that’s the issue with acts of glory: Doing the right thing while being focused is what is expected. When unfocused and doing something beyond orders, that does something even greater for the empire? That’s what gems get famous for. Or shattered. Part of the thrill of it all.

She stops, suddenly, squinting ahead of her. She steps behind a corner. There they are.

Peridot is pointing towards Jasper’s exit hole. Amethyst, Connie, Pearl, Garnet and Steven are with her, listening to her explanations. They have to defeat Jasper one way or another. They can’t just leave her roaming to do stars know what any longer.

Jasper steps out from behind her spot. She just has to be quick and keep them from fusing. That’s all.

Peridot spots her first, freezing up and pointing while letting out an incohesive sound. Pearl, Garnet and Amethyst draw their weapons while focused before quickly powering down again, but staying ready to jump at any moment.

Connie draws her sword, but pulls Steven and Peridot behind the three gems, and then joins them.

Jasper charges quickly, met first by Garnet. The three gems knock her back long enough to form Alexandrite, the huge hulking form attacking the unfocused gem, slamming her against one of the walls hard.

Steven coughs the sand out of his lungs, standing up. “Wait! Jasper! I’m not Rose- I don’t have her gem! Rose and Pink Diamond were the same person! You have no reason to fight us!”

Jasper recovers and dodges one of Alexandrite’s attacks, letting out a hollow laugh. “Is THAT how effectively you lie to your gems? Is that how you get them to believe you?”

The gem fusion lets out a terrid roar, and suddenly, the eyes glow, flash just briefly, and she slams down all six fists onto Jasper with a force she did not have before.

Alexandrite looks back, wavers, and deforms. The three gems look over. Pearl perks up first. “Wait, we didn’t- We didn’t mean to-”

The fusion had unleashed all of it’s rage on the unpowered quartz soldier, who crawls out of the rubble with determination, and a crack on her gem. Seeing her still up, the three gems draw their weapons again.

While Connie focuses on keeping Peridot near her, Steven steps back out and in front of the three gems.

“Wait.” He has his shield held with one arm, ready to be used, but not offensively. “We don’t have to fight. Jasper.”

Jasper lets out a dissatisfied snort. This is worse than fusion, but the crack forces her not to fight yet. Her limbs feel weak as she barely manages to squeeze herself out of the large rocks covering her. 

Steven quickly gets some spit on the tip of his finger and steps closer, slowly. 

“Let me heal you. Before your crack gets worse.”

Jasper grunts. Attacking them was a bad idea. She had no idea they were so trained in their little mind games that they could fuse 4 different gems together at once. It has always been two at most. She hated herself for it, for not following Yellow Diamond’s order. She wasn’t going to let these off-colors get into her head. She was NOT going to let Rose win. Not this time. Not like this.

“Stay away from me! I’m not going to listen to you, _ Rose _ .”

Steven lets out a stressed sigh as he takes another step. “I’m- I’m not Rose!” His anger subsides as quickly as it came, seemingly dissapating into nothing. His voice softens. “I’m Steven. I can help you.”

Jasper glares at him taking another step. Only two more and he’d be able to heal her. Only one more and he was in reach. His fingertips are outstretched.

“It’s- It’s fine. We’ll… fight again once you’re healed, just… let me heal you.” 

Enemy gem or not, Steven wasn’t keen on finding out what a shattered gem looks like. Not today. Not her.

He takes another step. She growls, and he can see her muscles tense, preparing. He was in range, but she didn’t move. Her eyes dashed from him and around the kindergarden.

He grits his teeth, sucking in a breath and ignoring the terror flowing through his body. An energy buzzed deep underneath it all, but he has no time to acknowledge it or notice it.

He takes another step, fingertips outstretched, and quickly touches them down onto her gem.

He wants to step back quickly, but he’s too late.

Jasper’s punch goes straight to his gut, sending him flying into one of the cliff walls. The sheer impact of his body into the weakened rock is enough to send bolders tumbeling down.

The gems throw themselves there as fast as they can, but they’re all too late. Rocks rain down with a loud, deep rumble, making the ground shiver, making Steven’s frame dissapear into the dust and the sand and the rock.

Silence covers the scene.

Some of the dust settles, and the gems stare into the clearing sight in horror. Complete silence, and no Steven. Only the pile of rocks and splinters and sharp boulders.

Jasper stands up, tsking. Her crack is healed, and she rolls her shoulders back. She hated to do this, but she’ll have to abuse- no,  _ use- _ her focus just this once. Gems are so much weaker without it. She has no idea how they can stand it.

The gems and Connie stare into the rocks with such a defeaning shock that Jasper clicks her tongue. This would be easy, when they’re still mourning that weakling.

An explosion sounds from the pile of rocks.

Everyone in the creak throws their arms up or turns away from the exlosion on instinct in some way. Garnet manages to protect Connie as the forcewave along with launched pebbles are thrown around, bouncing off the kindergarden walls.

The explosion is pink, and as the dust settles, they can see the outline of Steven. Relief washes over the gems. He’s there. He’s okay, he’s standing, at least.

The dust continues to settle, and his eyes open to be a bright, glowing pink, illuminating him in an eerie, cold glow. Diamonds rest in the middle.

Pearl glances to Garnet, who suddenly sweats, grasping her visor. No. There was no timeline where this wouldn’t have consequences. Her task was not to end up here, and now it’s too late.

Power. An almost unbearable amount of power rushes through Steven all at once, sending his emotions flying like on chemicals. He can feel it buzzing in him, ready to flow out his fingertips in it’s purest form, ready, eager to become anything he envisioned.

For a brief moment, he just breathes in, breathes in the dust and doesn’t even mind the sandy air. He hesitates for just a moment, and decides he’s done with self sacrifice, done with holding himself back, done with making himself suffer. He relaxes, for once ignoring the sensitive moral compass in the back of his head, the compass that’s brought him nothing but pain, so much pain, and lets the feeling fill his every limb and vein and muscle. 

Oh, does this feel good. He hadn’t felt this good in weeks, no, months. The tireness from last night’s nightmares are washed away like watercolors off of glass. There’s no place for fear in the living, breathing, beating tangle of the sheer power he felt at his disposal, pulsing like the blood in his veins.

Nothing could stop him. The feeling rushed through once more, and a laugh broke out his throat. It’s this easy. It was always this fucking easy! All the suffering he endured, all the sleepless nights, all the  _ torture- _ and now it’s all over, just like that. Now it all doesn’t matter anymore. Just. Like. That.

His eyes fall onto the orange quartz soldier. He can’t see anything, anyone else. They don’t matter. But she… she hurt him. She hurt him, and nothing fucking matters. He’s angry. He’s angry, and he’s not afraid to do anything he wants. It’s freeing, so, so sweetly freeing, a sweeter feeling he’s never known before. No more holding back.

_ She’s Disobedient. _

His face twists, from the relieved smile to a snarl to something twisted, something wholly uncontrolled and yet, fully aware. An impossibly soft and terrifying grin spreads over his features. With every surge of power, he feels the order, his desire, pulsating in his head ever louder.

_ Shatter Her. _

He wants to, he knows he wants to, more than anything. Garnet calls out his name, but it falls on deaf ears as he steps out of the rubble and towards the quartz.

Pearl stands up from where the explosion pushed her back, placing herself between Steven and Jasper. 

“Pearl!” Garnet calls out to her, frustrated, but Pearl doesn’t waver.

“Steven! Steven, listen to me. You have to breathe.”

He stops, looks up at her gem.

“Just… breathe. It’s not worth it, whatever you want to do. Trust me. We can- We can do this together.”

She’s about to go on when he cuts her off.

His voice is deep, growling and dripping with hatred and anger. His fists are clenched, and he twitches, twists. 

“Out of my way.”

The voice sends a shiver down Connie’s spine, and she can see the terror on the gems faces, unsure of what to do.

Pearl hesitates, trying to think of what to do, but he’s lost his patience.

“I said, out.  **Of my. WAY!”**

His voice turns impossibly loud. Connie covers her ears as the sound makes the ground tremble and vibrate and the sheer force of another explosion sends Pearl flying, hitting one of the piles of rocks. A roar underlines the words, echoing through the kidergarden as he turns to Jasper.

He reaches into his gem to pull out a blade consisting of two pink diamond shapes melded together, their connecting point being where he grips it, one of the pink diamonds longer, stretched out to form the blade itself.

Connie gulps. This is not the Steven she knows. This isn’t the Steven anybody knows.

Jasper sinks to her knees, the diamond salute to her chest. Her eyes are a bright yellow, but she’s unable to move, staring back at the pink ones with a blank, forced expression on her face.

Steven weighs the blade, taking his sweet time as he relishes in feeling this twisted feeling for the first time. He lets his fingers go over the half transluscent material. No, this would poof her easily. But that’s not what he wants.

He gets rid of the blade, and bubbles his fists instead, the power coming naturally to him. He turns them, and spikes cover the bubbles.

Garnet grabs hold of Connie and Peridot, dashing to the warp pad, sincerely hoping that Pearl and Amethyst would follow her lead.

Steven steps up to Jasper, his small grin dissapearing when he sees her motionless. No, he wants to win properly. His gut twists further. He wants her to fight back with everything she has and  _ lose. _

What does  _ he _ have to lose now? 

“Fight me.”

Jasper jolts upright, the new order taking hold of her. Not a moment after, she has her fists ready and her helmet summoned. Steven attacks, not accidentally punching her in the gut, hard, sending her flying against one of the cliffsides.

Connie tries to stop Garnet tugging her, shouting. “We can’t just leave him here like that! They could kill eachother! I won’t- leave- Steven alone!” 

She struggles to no avail. Pearl and Amethyst are next to Garnet now, catching up. 

Garnet only holds her wrist tighter. “Connie, you don’t know what he’s capable of!”

“But that’s still Steven! He’s just- angry! He hasn’t really hurt anyone he’s just… He needs us! Jasper almost killed him, can’t he be angry at her for once?”

Garnet continues to drag her wordlessly as Connie continues to shout and struggle and fight back with little use.

Jasper bursts out of the rubble to be met with another attack, using her arms to defend herself, but with every kick and with every punch more energy and power flows through Steven’s veins. She lets out a brief, snapped off noise of pain as he punches her in the gem, sending her reeling back.

She clutches her gem, on her knees, one hand stemmed under her. She looks up to see Steven floating in the air effortlessly. Hitting her was more fun than he thought, but it wasn’t enough. No, he wants to use everything for once. He wants to unleash  _ all of it.  _ This is supposed to make him feel good. He just has to go one step further to keep the feeling going.

He begins to summon a huge shield built up out of diamond shapes, spikes pertruding from the wall in the air, pouring every last bit of his energy into it. He raises both his hands, feeling the power respond, twitch, just _ waiting _ for him to give the order.

High on the power rush, confidence and superiority he’s never felt before, going through his whole body as he hesitates, savors the moment, smiling distantly. His voice is deep, soft but filled with a deep, quiet, knowing hatred.

“Who’s the weakling  _ now? _ ”

He looks down and sends the wall crashing down on her, positioning the spikes just right.

A high, hard breaking noise like a small hammer smashing down on a polished crystal, followed by a disgusting and disturbing crushing sound, like rocks being grinded to dust.

Connie’s struggles against Garnet stops, and the gems freeze. Garnet is the first to move, her hearing ringing in a way it rarely does, the panic keeping her together as she tears at Connie again. Connie’s heart is beating out of her chest as she falls onto the warp pad with her knees.

Pearl, Peridot and Amethyst stayed behind, not sure if what they heard was real. Garnet calls out to them.

Steven floats down to the ground. For a moment, a part of his powers wavers, and he panics. Just that light panic is enough. Years of supressed emotions wasn’t going to end that quickly, as gruesomely as they had introduced themselves.

He turns around to see the gems and Connie. The glow in his eyes grows dimmer, and then charges up again at full brightness for a second wave of energy.

“Where do you think you’re going?!”

No. Don’t leave me here, he thinks. They’re abandoning him, like he always thought they would. He’s going to keep them here. He has to. If they didn’t like the monster he really is, well, too bad. He never liked cleaning all their dirty laundry and patching up all their cracks, did he, now.

He sends another wall, this time spikeless, flinging towards them, but the warp pad goes off before it reaches them.

  
  


Peridot was on her knees, tinkering with the warp pad in the house, a persistent panic and nervousness in her movements as she tried to be as quick as possible. Quick, but precise. She can’t allow any mistakes.

Connie sits on the floor, still panting a little, rubbing her shoulder from where she had been tugged along. 

“But… we can’t just leave him there!”

Garnet ignores her, looking over Peridot’s shoulder. “Hurry.”

“I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying! Almost. Just gotta… Hrm…”

A last tinker, a last wind up of a mechanical indicator and and a last three button pushes, and the warp pad glowed twice in recognition of the command.

“There. All done.”

Garnet relaxes, but only a little.

Connie finally stands up. “So what, he can’t even warp someplace out of the desert? He’s going to dehydrate out there! Or starve! You can’t just leave him like that.”

Garnet turns, anger in her voice. “There’s nothing we can do! The Steven  _ we _ know,  _ you _ know, would never shatter a gem!” She calms. “He’s out of control. He’s dangerous to us all like this. This was a possibility, but I...” She shakes her head. “I thought he’d be more in control.”

Pearl places a hand on her shoulder, trying to be reassuring. She stares at the warp pad herself, unsure. Amethyst is curled up in a ball on the couch, hair pulled over her head.

Peridot carefully closes up the warp pad again, giving her hands something to do to distract her from what had just happened. She never knew Jasper on good terms, despite the few years on that spaceship. 

No, she even disliked her after she broke free of her focus, but that didn’t change the fact that she knew the quartz soldier so well by now. Some of her antics, her tics. The things she did that were just disobedient enough to do something outside of her orders, and yet so dedicatedly loyal that those outside actions bore her immense fame and recognition. Some gems, no, all gems would die for that recognition.

She closes the warp pad off, the last panel clicking into place. She clutches her hands against eachother. She presses her lips together, unsure, counting the small visible click-ins of the panel she just placed back. 

She knew there should be 200 on the top side, but counting them was the only thing that kept her from jumping up and warping back to the kindergarden, to check on the gem that had allowed her to think these thoughts about the quartz in the first place.


	4. Chapter 4

The gems all still sit in the living room. Pearl stands in one place, staring at the floor, sometimes looking over to Garnet. Peridot continues to stare at the warp pad and count the click-ins, while Amethyst had dissapeared into her room in the temple. Connie sits on the couch now, with her legs to her chest, trying to think of something. Trying not to be terrified.

Garnet stands motionlessly in the middle, sometimes pacing two or three steps in one direction before pacing back. Two hours after they had left the kindergarden, it must be, she stops, adjusts her glasses, and looks over to Pearl with a sigh.

“Alright, there’s a small chance he’s calmed down by now, but. Be careful. We can wait another hour.”

Pearl shakes her head and her feet tap lightly over the floorboards. She puts a hand on Peridot’s shoulder, who’s still murmuring numbers in the 10 000 range. 

“Are you coming?”

Peridot looks up, her eyes watery despite the distraction, and then sharply gets up. 

“Yes.”

The strange duo steps onto the warp pad, finally, and then looks to Garnet and Connie. Neither of them move. 

Peridot suddenly gasps. “We should get some food and water! Just in case he needs to stay there longer. Hold on.”

She runs to the kitchen, packing up things and water bottles, carrying an impressive amount of things in her short arms, piling them up with a sense of panic.

Pearl watches her as she returns. “I can put them into my gem?”

“No.” Peridot clutches the water bottles and food packs tighter, and Pearl lets out a soft sigh.

She looks back to the others. Finding Amethyst in her room could be impossible right now, Connie still looks like she’s ready to cry any moment and Garnet didn’t seem to be moving either. Fine then. Pearl straightens her back, and they warp.

The beta kindergarden lays silently in the heated sun. The air is clear. Pearl quickly spots who they’re looking for. Steven sits on his knees, turning away from them, hunched over. Quiet.

“Steven!” Pearl’s outcry makes Peridot spot him too.

Peridot drops the entire pile of supplies onto the ground, the gesture forgotten as she and Pearl rush over to him, with Pearl only barely beating her to it. They stop a few steps away, and Pearl slowly, carefully approaches him.

“Steven…? How… are you feeling?”

He wraps his arms around himself. The beta kindergarden’s walls are barely in tact, cracks and piles or rocks marking it. The destruction is impressive for someone of Steven’s size, in fact, the notion that this young boy with the pink jacket and the bright yellow star could bring cliffsides down seems surreal.

He turns back to them, and his eyes are black, reddened around, but dry. Pearl curses herself for not warping here sooner. This wasn’t a situation to listen to Garnet too. They should have been warping in and out every 5 minutes, every minute dammit, so they could catch the exact moment he turned back to normal.

His voice tries to be monotone, but it cracks easily. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s dangerous.”

“Oh, Steven…! We were so worried!” Pearl hugs him tightly, and Peridot joins in as they both squeeze him tightly.

Steven stares down at his own hands, gulping down more tears, more sobs. No time for that now. How could there be?

Peridot is the first to give him some space, staring out into the wasteland of broken rocks and boulders. Despite herself, she wonders where the shards are in all that mess. She shakes her head a little. Does it matter? Nothing is going to piece her together anyway. Not like that would even be useful to them.

Steven takes a deep breath, and Pearl lets him go when he stands up. With shaky hands, he turns to one of the piles, and, out of an emergance hole, pulls out a bubble.

About two dozen orange shards are in the pink bubble, floating calmly. “I… I want to try and heal her.”

His voice grows in strength only slowly. Pearl and Peridot exchange a glance, and Peridot tries to think. Think, just think. 

“Do you… have all the pieces?”

He nods, pressing his lips together to hold the pain in his chest instead of making it burst out. He hands the bubble to Pearl with a quiet voice.

“It’s probably better if you have it.”

Pearl takes the bubble, looking at him with concern as he sits back down.

Peridot clears her throat, and to Pearl’s surprise, speaks first.

“You can’t stay out here. Your human body- you won’t last. Come on.”

She tries to grab him by the shoulder, but he doesn’t budge. 

He shakes his head. “I’m going to hurt someone.”

Pearl kneels down next to him. “Steven, this was your first outburst. But you can take control of it! We know you can. Come on. Garnet might be able to help you. She’s the one who said you could have calmed down by now.”

Steven hesitates, looks up to her with slightly wider eyes, voice quiet, hopeful. “Garnet… You’re right. She might know what to do.”

He scrambles to his feet, closely accompanied by the two gems as they warp together, Pearl holding Steven tightly by the hand like she used to when he was much, much younger. Steven doesn’t react to it particularly.

Garnet and Connie look up, seeing the trio warp in. Garnet stops, unsummons her visor when she sees Steven and heads to him to embrace him as well. Steven loosely hugs back, kindof.

Connie watches wide eyed from the couch. She unwraps her arms from her legs and sits down normally, but her hands clutch the soft fabric beneath her nervously. She breathes out. She’s scared, and they’re not. Why can they be there for him now and she can’t? Why is she the one who’s most afraid? Then again, she didn’t fight a war. Well, and she’s not something hundred thousand years old.

Garnet lets go, and Steven and Connie’s eyes meet. Connie can’t help but shiver even if she doesn’t want to. He’s been crying, obviously, but something bitter, something grudged remains in his face expression. Some distant reminder of what he’s capable of. She looks away.

She takes a deep breath, and forces herself to stand up. This isn’t the time to be scared. This isn’t the time to be thinking about morality. She has to be there for him, no matter what, and if Garnet’s flower metaphor from an hour ago is right, then she needs to be more patient with him, not less so.

She ignores her shaky hands and wobbly knees as she feels determination spread through her. She walks up to the warp pad, ignoring her frantic heartbeat, and stops when Garnet steps aside so they’re face to face.

Maybe what she saw was temporary, maybe the bitterness was something she interpreted into his face from a distance. But the Steven standing in front of her right now looked like a street puppy that they’d picked up and rescued. He’d been crying. He looks miserable. Broken. How unbearably, unbearably guilty he must feel right now.

Connie hugs him, carefully at first, then clutches her arms around him as if the tightness of the hug would make her less terrified, would banish the last bit of fear she still felt.

Steven hugs her back a bit, but she can feel him move, writhe. She steps back, and he hugs his own arms, looking away. Pain sticks in her chest. She doesn’t know what to do. He always loves hugs, strives for them, relaxes into them with a sense of, ‘finally’. 

Now he’s distant, looking away, shoulders pulled up and closed off.

Steven’s voice succeeds in sounding more monotone this time. “I can’t stay here. Garnet. What do I do? I need to get this under control, fast.”

Garnet summons back her visor, straightening herself. “Hmm. Stay here. You’ll get a hold of it.”

His voice grows louder quickly, almost a yell. “But that’s- that’s dangerous!  _ I’m _ dangerous!”

“Without any thought to reel your power back in, you’ll never get control. You need a strong reason for control.”

“But- you can’t just do that!” He was growing increasingly irritated. “I could hurt someone! I could- I could shatter one of you!”

The word rings through the living room and the gems go dead quiet for a moment, pulled back a bit. Peridot looks away. 

Garnet starts up, voice soft. “Steven-”

Something in Steven’s chest twists. “What, that’s what happened, isn’t it? Are you going to pretend it didn’t?” There it was. That bitterness, that frustration. “I shattered her. I killed her! You know I did!”

He pants, looking between the gems in the room. What is he doing? What is he talking about? He shakes his head, his hands going into his hair. No, he wanted to keep that weird state seperate from him. The focus state isn’t him. It’s nothing like him, it has absolutely nothing to do with him, so why did he do that? Why did he have to argue?

The gems stand silent, not knowing what to do as Steven looks down, curling in on himself, gulping hard. No. Garnet is right! She has to be right. He just needs a big enough reason not to. He just needs to pull himself together, that’s all. He breathes in sharply and looks back up at her.

His voice is weak. “I… I don’t know what that was.” He cringes a little, looking down. “I’m sorry.”

The gems exchange glances, and Steven can feel the pressure, the tension in the room. Stupid. He just reminded them of the reason they should just kick him out alltogether. Before any of them can calm him down, he turns and walks upstairs to his room, shutting the door behind him, sliding down to sit with his back against a wall.

He buries his face into his knees, trying not to cry, but eventually, he does. Sobs sound through the room. He’s never going to live this down, is he? He’s never going to forget this. How can he be a crystal gem like this? He’s not. How could he be. He never was, for so many reasons.

He’s a diamond, he’s half human, he’s never going to take control of his focus state. They’re only nice to him because they think he doesn’t truly have control. What if they find out that it’s something he wanted? What if they find out how good it felt to let his powers go? What if they finally realize that all this has root in him. And once the perfect image crumbles, only the monster will be left.

He hopes, somehow, they will have the heart to fight him head on if that happens. Maybe that would be fine. Maybe getting stabbed through the chest will fix this. He lets out another pained laugh, a small laugh that makes his gut twist further, that lets out some of that pent up energy that’s kicking against the bars of it’s cage. 

But what’s the use in holding back, anyway? If he’s a monster, if that’s where he’s going to end up, what’s the point of stalling the inevitable? Pain? Guilt? Feeling like he gave it his all, when he knows that he’ll never feel like he did enough no matter what?

The only time he’d feel like enough is if he could never enter that state again, and go back to exactly how things were before. Something tells him that’s not going to happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be outta town for like, 4 days, so the fic will only update afterwards. Stay tuned for that, though!
> 
> Also pray I finish Chapter 9 on time. It's definitly moving along, though!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for this chapter's contents. More info just below:

((TW: non-con fears/mention. No, it doesn’t happen. The indication that it could, however, is there. If you’re easily triggered or made uncomfortable by that, I suggest skipping this chapter. Summary will be included at the end. Stay safe. You can ctrl+F the word “Summary”))

  
  


Connie decided to stick around. He was calm when he returned, and leaving him like this now just felt wrong. He’s always been strong for them, so she feels she has to be strong for him now. He’s dove head first into danger before he even had his shield. She just had no idea just how terrifying that is. She has no idea how he does it.

Bismuth had added a guest room to the house when they’d rebuilt it, so the gems let her stay there. Garnet told her she’s brave for staying. Now she’s laying awake in bed, wondering whether that was a good or a bad sign.

She rolls over. The bed is soft, softer than at home, but she misses the scent of familiarity and comfort, the scent of cement walls and dust and that distant scent of paint, of some kind of chemical. Instead, the room smelled of flowers, hardened wood and freshly washed sheets.

She wants to go home. But she wants to be there for Steven. She hasn’t told her mother, despite the promise they once made. Her mother would drag her back home no questions asked, and even if Connie wouldn’t immensely mind that, she felt the right thing to do was to stretch out the same way Steven always does. Even if now, she has to wonder, whether she ever really knew him to begin with.

No, she knows him. They’d been friends for years. The ways he hides his frustration, the ways in which he breathes in and then goes back to being happy and carefree whenever he even begins to express anything else. 

She can see his face, clear as day in her head when he’d drop something important, the way his face changed, how she could just tell by his responses how bad he felt for every single minor mistake. She just had no idea it could get this bad.

She can’t sleep like this. 

She gets up, throwing the soft blanket back. She may not be home, but if she’s quiet, maybe she can walk around a bit and sleep better afterwards.

She creeps down the stairs carefully, learning how and when the creaks sound with each step. The kitchen lays dark and quiet, illuminated by the faint glow of the temple and the moonlight falling through the windows.

She creeps to the fridge, even though she doesn’t know if she’s quite familiar enough to take something out. She’s been here a lot of times, but this house is more than just Steven’s. It’s the gems too. She doesn’t know their fridge habits.

The fridge, as expected, holds mostly unfamiliar things. It humms when she closes it with a sound louder than she thought it would be.

She heads to the counter. What is she doing here? Right, she wanted to walk around. She leans on the counter, closing her eyes, placing her hands on her face. The dark, quiet night answers with the sound of crickets and the continued humming of the fridge.

“Hi.”

The voice makes her startle up, turning around so the counter is behind her. Two bright pink eyes meet hers, and a face she knows and at the same time doesn’t know at all. The pink dips the entire kitchen in it’s unnatural color.

His face is illuminated by the glow softly, giving it something alien, something that makes her sure he’s more gem than everyone likes to consider. He stands more confidently than usual, and as she already has many times, she instinctively admires the soft but strong features of his face. The pink light frames them well. She blinks. Bad time for that.

“Steven.” She says, mostly sounding unsure. 

He’s standing one step across from her, and her eyes dart to either side of him. He isn’t coming any closer, yet. Her heart pounds loudly in her chest, and some irrational part of her is afraid that he can hear it, in this state.

His eyes are bright, enticing, hypnotising. As long as he stares back at her, she finds it immensely difficult not to stare back, to study the white diamond shape in the middle and the pulsing glow of the irises.

“Night, Connie.” He lays his head to the side a bit. A small, casual smile rests on his face, something that she would have found normal if it weren’t for the circumstances. “Can’t sleep?”

She doesn’t quite know how to describe the difference in his voice. It’s certainly his, but it’s deeper, almost calmer. Not a quiet, serene calm, however. It was the calm of stepping carefully over a thin sheet of ice, while the cold wind chills you to the bone and you know each next step could be your end.

He doesn’t sound awfully caring when he asks. He sounds bored. He’s stating a fact, not asking, and yet, he’s here, spending his time not punching boulders to pieces or attacking someone, but staring at her intensely with those eyes, watching her every move.

What does he want from her? The gears in her head turn as she tries to figure out. There must be something he wants. That’s what the whole focus state is tied to. But what could he want from her to just make him stand there and stare at her?

Maybe he just wants to talk. Maybe some piece of Steven is still there, learning to control, learning to express different desires. 

He humms softly, almost comfortingly for a moment, pulling her attention back to reality as she had zoned out. He takes half a step foreward, and places one hand against the counter to her right side, leaving her left open. Before Connie can react, the pink eyes curiously flick her up and down.

Her heart skips a beat as her thoughts start to race. They’re alone, in the dark kitchen. The gems are all in the temple, probably not lastly so they don’t get taken by surprise.

Desire takes on an entirely different meaning to her all of a sudden. No. No, he can’t- He wouldn’t. He would never. He would- he would stop. But he didn’t stop when he felt what it’s like to punch Jasper, and he didn’t stop when she gasped and whinced in pain, and he didn’t stop when her gem broke to pieces, and he didn’t stop there because he felt he had to give them another push to grind them up properly, and he didn’t stop there either because then his focus turned to the other gems around him.

Her stomach churns. This reminds her so much of Kevin. Of that immense discomfort that she never really got out of her mind, and not in a hundred years would she have dreamed that Steven would be capable of causing that kind of feeling no matter what he does. Panic overtakes any other feeling she could have had in this situation, overtaking the bit of low excitement that her body had initially tried to get her to respond with.

His eyes meet hers again. There’s a curiosity in them, and he smiles back, almost casually. “Scared?”

Her eyes dart to the left, to the open side. He’s faster. He can fly, warp. He can blow the house to smithereens. There’s nowhere to run or hide, and her heart starts to squeeze tightly in her chest. She feels like crying. No, not like this. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t…

She forces her breaths to calm down, her body’s emergency state securing itself as adrenaline gives her the control she needs. 

“You know what? I forgot something in my room, I’ll be... right back.” Connie herself marvels at just how normal she manages to make her voice sound, but she’s learned to use adrenaline for her benefit over the years of training.

She darts away from him to the open side, and he looks after her, turning. As she goes up the stairs, her forehead hits a pink wall, and she stumbles back, almost falling down. She takes a step down and looks behind her to see Steven near her again, like a wolf unwilling to let his prey get too far away from him.

“Very smart. You think I don’t know you’re trying to run away? Trying to leave me behind?”

Connie’s thoughts stutter. Leave him behind? She steps back onto the living room floor. He’s close again, his hands now out of his pockets, but she pushes the fear down. It’s Steven. It’s still just him.

She can’t leave him like this. She wants to, and maybe, she has the right to. She doesn’t have to do this, but… what else can she do?

She softens her voice. “I’m… I’m not going to leave you behind.”

He looks at her, eyes alert, and she steps foreward to wrap her arms around him in a hug.

He stands, unsure how to react at first. He doesn’t hug her back, despite the comforting, familiar warmth that she can feel from him.

He speaks coldly. “You know, I’ve grown pretty fucking numb to this.”

Connie’s never heard him swear before, and judging by how the word seemed weird on his tongue, this might be a first. But this is… something. He’s talking to her. She hates to admit, but he’d never say that kind of thing without the focus, even if he’d feel like it.

She pulls back, and he goes on. “You’re scared. You’re just doing this cause you don’t want me to hurt you.” 

He goes on, voice quiet but angry. “You want your precious angel back, well guess what.”

He grabs her by the shoulders suddenly, pushing her up against the wooden wall. 

“He’s  _ dead _ . He never existed in the first place.”

He goes quiet, face close to hers, and Connie can feel both a good and bad heat rushing to her face and through her body, trying to keep her mixture of emotions under control as fear dimms them down.

He grabs her chin. “You’re lucky. I could do anything I want to. And you’re lucky, cause there’s things I could do, that I just happen to not  _ want _ to do.”

He lets go of her and steps back. The pink wall is gone, and he heads out the door, leaving her behind in the dark living room. Her breaths are shorter than usual, the skin on her chin feels like it’s burning, and her heart is still beating in her chest. 

It’s quiet. She sighs, tense. She looks to the temple door, and wonders what to tell the gems.

((Summary: Connie stays the night at the house. Unable to sleep, she heads down to the kitchen, and she and Steven interact. He’s in his focus state. He talks about Connie leaving him behind like everyone else, and how she wants her “angel” back while insisting the old him is dead. Connie tries to hug him, but it doesn’t help, although Connie finds him at least being honest. Eventually, Steven heads outside, leaving Connie unsure what to do.))


	6. Chapter 6

The cold air from outside hits his skin, and he takes his jacket off, tossing it over the railing. He jumps down, the floating still more clumsy than he’d like to have it. 

He walks up to the cliffside that holds the temple. He balls a fist, and punches the rock.

The pain in his chest only then properly fires up, only then does he feel like yelling, like crying out, like shouting and screaming.

His fists leave dents and cracks where they hit as the power hits his veins over and over again. The first few punches hurt, cracks sounding like from broken bones. The more he punches, the more his body adjusts, power flooding to his fists to make them stronger, sturdier, harder. Numb.

Eventually, tears flood over his face, but he ignores them, ignores it all as he just continues to follow his instinct, his desire. The desire to make all this hurt less.

He isn’t sure why he’s surprised. He should have known, but something, some irrational leftover voice from before told him that Connie would somehow be different. Bullshit.

Of course she tried to help, tried to talk, despite herself. But she’s terrified of him, and she may love the image carefully crafted over the years, but that picture is fake. Did she ever see that? Did she ever even notice? And now she just thinks it’s like that pretty picture needs a stain removed, wiped off the smooth cover, and everything would go back to normal. It hurts. 

It hurts because she always only loved that part of him. How could she love anything else? 

Another fist hits the rock, the dent deeper than before.

He doesn’t know when he calms down. Some time later, he just finds himself feeling normal again. The lines are awfully blurred, and he doesn’t like it one bit.

\---

Connie should’ve seen it coming, but of course, the next thing he does is shut himself off.

He doesn’t come down to breakfast, even after Connie tried to explain what happened last night, while Garnet notices the slight shaking in her voice and assures her nothing could have happened.

9 am, 10 am, 11 am. No Steven. Pearl goes to check on him, but he doesn’t answer her knocking, and Connie knows the gems aren’t too keen on bursting into his room right now. Connie sits at the table, staring into a glass of water, as they talk in hushed voices. They don’t know what to do. He isn’t coming out. Did they ever know? Why does he have so much pent up anger? Where did it come from? Why didn’t they notice?

Connie gets up, suddenly, remembering the way Steven would cancel a call whenever he started to panic and then refuse to pick up, or how he would sometimes dissapear when he thought he messed up.

The gems quietly watch her go up the stairs. Steven always did this for her, so shouldn’t she for him? As his knight? 

She knocks on the door despite herself. No answer. She knocks again, more insistently, and then places her hand on the door handle. Now or never.

She pushes the handle down and opens the door, looking inside through a slit.

Steven sits up on his bed, looking over to Connie. He looks like he didn’t sleep all night.

“Connie? You’re still here?”

“Of course I’m still here.” She pauses. He looks normal. She looks inside properly. “You… wanna come down to breakfast? Pearl made toast with eggs.”

He turns his face away. “You shouldn’t be here. You should go.”

“Not happening. Now come down to breakfast.”

“I said you should go.”

“And I said it’s not happening. This isn’t the first time you try to push me away.”

“This is different!” His voice pitches higher as he looks at her again, frustrated. “This is dangerous, can’t you see that?”

“So are gem missions.”

“You’re not taking this seriously!”

“Just come down to eat.”

“No!”

Connie lets out a heavy sigh. “Steven.”

“Connie. You shouldn’t be here. You don’t have to be here.”

“Of course I have to be here! I have to help you.”

“No you don’t! You should go home.”

“I’m not going home!”

He pauses before he answers, calming down for a moment. He goes on, softer this time. “Connie. You don’t have to be here. You shouldn’t… you shouldn’t have to put yourself in danger like that for me.”

“But you- but you do that all the time!”

“That doesn’t mean you should.”

“You’ve gotten in danger for me. I have to-”

“No!” He cuts her off, frustration replaced with worry. “Connie, just because I’m like that doesn’t mean you HAVE to be!”

She feels herself waver, gulping down the pressure in her throat. “But I’m supposed to be your knight.”

“Stars, do you still have that ingrained in your head?” He makes a motion to get up, to step closer to her, physical as always, but stops himself and remains sitting on the bed. “Connie, we’re both knights. For eachother. For the crystal gems.”

Connie doesn’t answer, searching for some response, some way to stop making this about her and make it about him.

He goes on. “The gems went into the temple at night, and you know why. If they get to do that, you don’t have to… place yourself into danger like that.”

She grips the handle tighter, voice all the weaker. “I want to be there for you.”

“I know, but… there’s a difference between being there when I ask you to be, and just… mindlessly ignoring yourself.”

She sighs, and her shoulders drop a little as she stares down on the floor. He has a point. 

“You always do both, though.”

“Yeah.” He lets out a small, pained laugh. “And look where it got me.”

They both became quiet, and Steven stares down at the floor as well, not knowing what else to say, unable to look at her. Not after yesterday. 

Connie speaks up again, quietly. “It feels wrong to just, leave you.”

“You’re not leaving me. I’ll… call you if I’m ready for you to help.”

“I have a feeling you just won’t.”

“I will. I promise.”

She looks up, and after a moment, their eyes meet. “Really promise? I’ll be upset if you don’t hold it.”

“I promise, really.”

Connie pauses, looking around a moment. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Connie.”

She begins to move a bit, stand fully upright and try to decide how to leave the door before he speaks up again.

“Connie- I’m…” His voice grows weaker, softer. “I’m sorry. I’m really really sorry.”

“I know. It’s-” She doesn’t want to lie. “It’ll be okay.”

He nods a bit. The determination to make things right is set clear on his face, and Connie knows he isn’t going to let her get into danger again. That’s the Steven she knows, anyway.

She sighs and closes the door carefully, heading downstairs.

The gems look somewhat worried, having heard the yelling, but she just shakes her head. “You can go in his room and talk, I… I think I need to get back home.”

Pearl nods, moving to get her things from the guest room. Connie goes to put away her dirty plate, but it’s already gone. Pearl does these things almost too fast to get help with them.

It’s quiet when she comes home, the clock ticking on the wall, reminding her that she should be somewhere else right now... 

No. Steven’s right. She shouldn’t slip into the same mistakes that he always makes, even if he isn’t exactly working on not doing those anymore. She drops her stuff in her room, falling onto the bed, and starts to think about yesterday.

\---

He makes his way down by noon. The gems are still there, and three heads turn to him as soon as he comes into sight. He flinches and immedietly wants to go back.

The gems exchange unsure looks before Pearl quickly heads to the counter. “Sit down, Steven. I can re-warm breakfast.”

Amethyst already sits, head in her hands as she watches Steven come down. He carefully sits down at the table, as if afraid a wrong move would scare everyone off.

Garnet seems to be staring off into space, thoughtful. He sighs quietly. Right, as usual.

He blinks at the sound of the sizzling frying pan. “Um, Pearl, since when did you like making breakfast?” 

She usually only likes setting tea. She humms, agile fingers moving to keep the food un-burnt. “Oh, well, I can always try something new. Besides, I thought you would, um. Appreciate it.”

“Of course! It’s just… you don’t  _ have _ to do this, if you don’t want to.”

Garnet seems to snap out of her trance, leaning against the counter. “We want to help you, Steven.”

“Uh, Pearl is kindof the only one doing anything right now.” He quickly goes on, correcting his phrasing. “But! That’s not important, I just mean- I’m fine, I just… need to get myself together, right? I usually make breakfast on my own.”

Pearl turns off the stove, turning around. “You can always do it yourself if you want to, of course, but we don’t mind helping.” She hands Steven a plate with fried eggs on it.

He pokes the food with a fork. It’s a bit dark, despite Pearl’s attempts at trying to keep it edible. They must’ve been warming it up all morning before they gave up and just decided to wait.

He pokes the food again, wondering if it would be impolite to make himself a new one.

Amethyst lets her head fall onto the table with a thud. “Who are we kidding? We’re bad at this.” Her muffled voice causes Pearl to unsurely cross her arms over her chest while Garnet looks down, unsure what to say.

“Nono, it’s fine, it’s just… you thought I’d come down sooner.”  _ Come on Steven, just smile. They went through all this effort for you. _ “I appreciate it, really.”

The gems exchange a glance. Amethyst had watched him through some strands of her hair, sighing with frustration. “Steven, you don’t have to lie to make us feel better. We’re supposed to be helping you for once.”

Steven looks down, at the food, at his hands. He puts the fork down. “I’m sorry.”

Amethysts head shoots up to glare at him. “For what?!”

“What do you mean for what? For everything! For being out of control, and bad, and almost hurting you, and now I’m finally back, and I can’t even appreciate your attempts to help me! I’m being mean, and-”

Garnet cuts him off. “Steven. You’re not being mean. We want you to be honest with us.” She pauses, everyone’s eyes on her. “There’s a reason your focus state is the way it is. It’s not about repression. It’s about control.”

He sighs, tired and frustrated, chin propped up with one hand. “What does  _ that _ have to do with anything?”

“It seems that the part of you brought out during focus, the part that otherwise remains buried, is the same part where you’ve been placing all of your frustrations. You don’t have to hide your frustration from us. We’ve taken... a lot. We’re surely willing to take you being honest with us.”

Silence falls over the kitchen. Steven sighs. It’s this or nothing, isn’t it? He wants to crawl back to his room and curl into a ball underneath the covers, but he can’t just wait for everything to build up again. It’s not fair to them. It’s either being honest, or losing himself again. He has to try. And if he does, maybe he’ll be ready to see Connie again, too.

He takes a deep breath. “I just…” Unsure what to say, he buries his face with both hands. “I’m sorry. I… I don’t know where to start. I should be handeling this better.”

Pearl carefully takes the plate and fork from underneath him, throwing away the burnt eggs and getting new ones out of the fridge before hesitating. “Ah, I almost forgot… What do you want for breakfast, Steven?”

He blinks, taking his hands down, the situation easing. “Eggs are fine.”

Pearl nods and tosses some new eggs into the frying pan. The sizzling fills Steven’s head for a moment like white noise as he tries to figure out what to say.

He takes another deep breath, sensing the way the gems’ attention turns back to him. “I’m… not very good at handeling frustration, I think.”

Amethyst cuts in. “Well yeah, cause you bottle it up and we like, never see it! You’re always super patient, and caring, and understanding, and… and everything!”

He gives a small, embaressed laugh at the compliments. Maybe the first time he’s smiled since the incident. Oh. The incident. He shattered Jasper.

His smile dies down as quickly as it came. “You guys are mad at me, right? For what I did?”

The gems avoid his gaze for a moment, Amethst and Pearl looking to Garnet for an answer. 

Garnet adjusts her visor. “We’re… worried for you, Steven.”

“Just worried?”

“We know that wasn’t truly you. It was a part of you that you have yet to process.”

“Do you think… I can do it? Control it, someday?”

Garnet smiles. “Yes, we do. But you’ll have to accept it as a piece of you, first. And talk to us.”

Frustration seeps back into his voice. “A piece of me? But that- that was awful! I… I didn’t really…” He trails off, searching for words. 

Pearl sets finished breakfast on the table near Steven on a new plate and with a new fork. She sits down next to Amethyst.

Garnet sits down as well. “Steven, you can talk to us.”

“About what?”

“About what it was like.”

“It was… Scary? But at the same time, it was… well...” Fun? Exciting? New? No, he can’t say that. They’d hate him forever.

Amethyst cuts into the silence. “I mean, my focus state just makes me wanna break things, I’m just not strong enough to take on, like, Jasper.”

“But- but that means I think of these things! I… I’m…” He braces himself, voice rising. “I’m not the angel you think I am!”

He sighs. A part of it is out, and his eyes dash nervously between the gems, who look at him with… concern.

“Steven.” Garnet’s voice is firm as she adresses him. “Your focus state makes you act differently. We trust you because you’ve already done so much good. But you’re not perfect. None of us are.” She leans back. “If you hadn’t entered your focus state then, you might not even be here now. I hate to say this, but… I’d rather have you in one piece than her.”

Steven stands up abruptly. “How can you say that! She’s a gem like us, like you! Brainwashed by homeworld and supressed her entire life!”

Garnet smiles. “And that, Steven, is why you’re still the same Steven you were before.”

He opens his mouth to reply, then closes it. 

Garnet goes on. “Your focus state does not determine you. But it is a part of you. Learn to love that piece like you love the rest of you.”

Love? He looks down, fists balled. Love himself. As if. Although… she’s probably right on that front.

“I’ll… think about it.” The other gems still glance at him in concern, and he sighs. “Thanks for… talking to me. I just need to think, I think.”

They nod quietly, and he makes his way back up to his room, feeling vulnerable and exhausted.

The only thing that makes him feel loved and right is being around Connie. Connie…

He picks up his phone and stares at it. No missed calls or messages. He whinces. He misses her, more than anything. Not that they’d never gone a day or even a week without seeing eachother, but knowing that he could and chooses not to makes his chest ache.

Knowing that he hurt her. He clutches the phone tighter, but his body is too tired to cry.

Slowly, going against his own judgement, trying to ignore his panic and frantically beating heart, he opens the chat with Connie. He feels he shouldn’t, after what’s happened. What if she never wants to talk to him again? What if she’s still hurt? Afraid? Terrified? He closes his eyes shut.

If she were, she can just tell him no. Right. He can just say that. He begins to type, talking about how she doesn’t have to, and shouldn’t feel forced, but he…

He gulps. He needs her support, even if it’s just a phonecall. Or a text. At the very least, he needs to know the answer, needs to clarify so he can be less terrified about all this.

His finger hovers over the ‘send’ button until his phone goes dark. This is ridiculous. He can’t even send a text. He shouldn’t. But at the same time, a different part of him feels he should. He should at least try.

Groaning, he opens the chat again, takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and hits send.

And promptly tosses his phone back on the nightstand and curls up on his bed with his eyes shut.

A few minutes of silence pass as his thoughts are racing, upwards and downwards and in spirals like a firestorm, a million thoughts of guilt and mistakes and wrong doings coursing through his mind like starled birds-

...until his phone chirps.

He turns around slowly, grabbing it with unsteady hands and opening the new message. It’s Connie. He breathes out in relief. She’s there. She doesn’t hate him. She wants to talk about what happened, and for her, he knows, he’s going to try his best.


	7. Chapter 7

When Connie arrives at the broadwalk, she certainly knows this is going to be difficult. She spots the black curls and the pink jacket from afar, heading over there carefully. He’s hunched up. She wonders what’s going on in his head right now, until she rounds the bench and can see his scrunched up face.

She sits down carefully, and she can hear him sniff while desperately also trying to compose himself. 

He shakes his head a little, looking away. “I’m sorry, I… I knew you would be earlier, but… I’m sorry.”

He pulls in a deep breath, trying to relax. Connie can feel emotions walling up in her already. 

She places a hand on his shoulder. “Steven…”

He looks back to her, conflicted, then takes another deep breath with closed eyes. She wonders where he learned that, and when he opens his eyes, he looks a bit calmer.

He gulps, voice quiet and shy. “I’m, um, glad you… came here today.”

“Of course."

“Connie, I know I keep repeating myself, but… I’m sorry. Is there… anything I can do to make this better? Please?”

“I just, think you can work through this, you know?”

He nods, looking to her now. “Garnet has been helping me a bit.” A kind of strength enters his eyes. ”I want to get this under control. I have to.” He looks to the side again, embaressed. “I was… hoping that, maybe, you could help? Only if you want to of course.”

“Well, that does depend on what I have to do, but…” She lets her hand fall down to his, holding it tighly. “I do want to help you.” 

A moment of silence passes, the roaring waves crashing in the background. That was… surprisingly easy, Connie thought. Or maybe she could have expected this. A wave of relief slowly goes through them both, and he turns so they can hold eachother’s hands.

His voice is a bit more firm, decisive. “Well, still, if there’s anything I can do, you can tell me. And I’ve gotten a bit more control, and Garnet told me what to do next, but I’m not too sure if that’s a good idea.”

“What did she say?”

“Well, I’ve… managed to go pink-eyed once without, well, doing anything. Just, uh, mooding around. Garnet said that, maybe, if someone else accepts that part of me… it’ll be easier for me to. And then, I’ll have full control.”

He quickly continues. “I wouldn’t put you into danger of course! I-It’s better now, and we can always have the gems around, and-”

Connie cuts him off. “Steven.” 

“Y-yeah?”

“I… I might still be a bit conflicted, about the whole thing. About what happened.” She pauses, and he nods understandigly. “But I want to help you. I want to trust you. And… I do want to get to know… all of you, you know?” She goes on, almost a whisper. “I think you have a reason to be the way you are. And I still don’t think you’d willingly hurt anyone.”

“So… would that be… okay with you? I want you to be comfortable.”

“Depends on what it’d look like?”

“I would… be in focus, and the gems will be around, and… I don’t know.” He lets out a half-hearted laugh. “You’ll get to see me acting like a moody teenager.”

“Is that really what it is right now?”

“Well, it’s just...” He looks away. “I don’t like myself a whole lot when I’m like that. It’s… I’m moody, and grumpy, and mean sometimes, and-”

“I can deal with moody and grumpy.”

“Are you sure?”

“About that? Yes.”

Steven nods, voice a whisper.“Okay.”

They sit quietly, clumsily holding hands, hearing people rarely walk by or the ocean crash into the beach over and over.

“Steven?”

“Yeah?”

“I thought, um… can we just, meet like this first, a few times?”

His eyes soften. “Of course.”

She looks at their bundled hands. “I missed you.”

He gulps, trying to stay composed again. “I missed you too.”

She carefully reaches forward into a hug, only for Steven to move forth and squeeze her tightly. She gives a small laugh, sinks into his familiar, floral scent, and they both breathe a small sigh of relief. 

They stay that way until long shadows tickle their feet and the everwatching gaze of the sun squints at them from the horizon.

\---

Everything was alright, sitting here in the sand, but he knows that today that can’t be the goal.

He doesn’t know when he slipped into his focus state. But at some point, when the sun was gone and he started thinking about what happened, slowly stepping deeper and deeper, from being brushed aside to fighting for his life, to shields and roses and pain. Thoughts of the gem history books and cliffs he had to overcome on a whim bring the pink glow to the beach, illuminating the sand.

He grumbles something to himself, feeling the impulsive hurt just below the surface. He’s come to know it as hurt. It made him want to punch the sand into glass to prove that he isn’t as vulnerable as he seems, to make sure nobody comes close. 

He heard the steps long before he saw her. Two weeks had passed, and she’s seen him in this state, but only from a distance. Somewhere on the cliff are the gems, silently watching. He twitches a bit at the thought, shoulders pulling up. All of his instincts are insisting this is wrong, he can flee, or fight, and not show himself like this on a silver platter… But his conscience knows he has to. He just has to trust it’ll go well.

The wind swipes over the beach, and he leaves his gaze fixated on the horizon, where the dark sky met the shadowed ocean.

She walks over the beach carefully and sits down not too far away. He doesn’t look over, the wind ruffeling through his hair mercilessly, tearing at his clothes. Somehow, the rage of the wind made him all the more nervous. But this is Connie. 

Connie. The only thing repeating in his head is how much it hurt to feel like she never really liked him in the first place. Which is unfair. And that doesn’t make the feeling course through him any less. 

But he’s not like he is when he’s calmer. He turns his head to look at her. 

Pink diamond eyes meet her dark ones, rivaling the sky, with a soft hint of the moon reflecting in them.

She looks right back, bravery holding her in place as well as an eerie calm.

He can’t help it, the bit of overplayed confidence that his power gives still prominent. “So you’re here.” He sighs. “Why?”

“Last I remember, the goal was to get to know you.”

“For what?”

“What do you mean for what?”

“Connie, you don’t need this.”

“I like you, you know.”

“Tch.” He turns away. “You wish.”

She scoots up closer. “Wish what?”

He crosses his arms in front of his chest. “Don’t play dumb. You don’t need this. All gem-stuff has ever done is complicate your life. Why don’t you just leave?”

“Because… I like being here, and around you. And you know I love gem-stuff. Besides, someone has to be here to help you through it, right?”

He doesn’t respond, and she goes on. “You’re not perfect. But neither am I. You’re kind, and talkative, and you put so much effort into making other people feel better. And then one day, all of that just… exploded. Because you didn’t take care of yourself.”

“What, so I didn’t do  _ enough? _ ” He doesn’t yell, but his voice is certainly sharper and louder.

“No, you did too much. You know that.”

“...Not enough to justify this.”

She thinks for a moment. “It doesn’t justify hurting people. But it justifies you being angry, and… Well, needing to take care of yourself now.”

He stands up, facing away. “I don’t know how to do that! It’s complicated, and I’m mad, and frustrated, and why do you even  _ bother?! _ ”

Connie stands up while he talks, and then embraces him from behind. “Because I care about you.”

His voice is quieter. “Why?”

She shrugs a little. “Dunno.”

He stands still. “I hurt people.” He states matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, but you regret it, and you’re literally only here because you want to change.”

He grumbles something. “You’re stubborn.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

He sighs and starts to move out of the hug. 

Connie lets him go, trying to think of what to say now. She still doesn’t know much about this state, but…

“Hey, Steven?”

“Mm.”

“Wanna warp to the diamond murals in the mountains and smash them?”

He turns back to her, a bit surprised, a bit suspicious. He seems to think for a moment.

“That,” he states, grabbing her by the hand, “is the best idea I’ve ever heard.”


	8. Chapter 8

Training had to look different now. As they’d both grown older, after meeting Lapis, Peridot and even Jasper, their looks often drifted to the sky. Sometimes when Steven watched the stars, he would sometimes panic at a small glitter, his mind imagining it to be a Homeworld ship.

Peridot says they’ll come back, and he notices that even Connie is much more antsy than usual as the green gem tells them the time frame for Jasper to return has run out.

Of all times to be unable to fully control his powers. He practices, and miraculously, Connie found a decent way to connect anyway. He’s apologized profously, over and over, with flowers and sweets and songs and everything, and he still wonders whether that will ever be enough.

The sky arena lazily floats in the clouds. Pearl and Garnet are practicing technique.

Steven goes to sit down on the stairs near Connie. She gives him a small smile, and he does his best to return it.

His mind wanders to Pearl assuring him he’s nothing like the diamonds, then to Jasper with a distant shudder, then to Connie. She’s already looking over with concern. He shrugs and manages a half-hearted smile, but she only pushes her brows down further. 

He sighs. “The usual.” He murmurs quietly, looking to the battle.

It’s odd to see Garnet with anything other than her gauntlets and Pearl with a lightweight axe instead of a sword or spear. They step away from eachother a moment later and then head back. 

Steven could hear Pearl talking about how long it took her to get the axe this sharp. And the maintenance of it! Garnet listens almost expressionlessly, but a faint smile plays around her lips at Pearl’s enthusiasm.

Steven looks down. Everything is just… rolling on, like it used to. And he just sits here and feels numb and cold in the sunlight.

He feels Connie place a hand on his shoulder. He looks up to her in question. Oh, right. They’re up next.

They hadn’t fused since the… incidents, and Steven made sure to say that she can set the boundary. She should decide when she’s ready, and so far they’ve been training apart.

Steven gets up and moves to the middle of the arena. He does his own practice with magic while nobody is around - not lastly because they end in disaster far too often - so he gets into position with his metal shield, all magic absent.

Connie walks up after him, and then stops. She looks down at her sword, the blade reflecting the sky, and then looks up with determination.

“We should practice fusing again.”

He opens his mouth to say something, closes it again. “A-are you sure? Are you up for it?”

She nods, certain and serious, sheathing the sword away. “With Homeworld on our doorstep-”

Steven cuts in. “This isn’t about Homeworld.” She stares at him, and two frustrated looks meet. He goes on, voice softer. “Only if you’re ready. There’s no pressure.”

She stomps a foot down firmly, like getting ready to fight. “I’m ready.”

He sighs nervously. “Okay.”

He swings his shield over his back, rolling his shoulders back, shaking himself a bit to relax. Their eyes meet again, and he nods.

Stevonnie forgot, with how long it’s been, how easy it is to be them.

The moment the light fades and two souls look through one pair of eyes, a lot of things start to fit together.

Stevonnie waits a moment, eyes closed, as thoughts of pink glowing light and fear and guilt run through them. It’s easier, though. Alone, those thoughts would have been overwhelming, but knowing that neither of them is alone makes them brave enough to push on.

Their mind settles, and Stevonnie opens her eyes to see a surprised Pearl and Garnet. They smile. 

“They thought they should try it, and here I am!” Stevonnie pulls up a metal shield and unsheaths the sword. “Ready for some holo-pearls, ma’am!”

Garnet smiles, and Pearl’s face lights up like a christmas light. She takes a deep breath, calming down for a moment to focus, bringing forth three holo-pearls ready for combat.

The first holo-pearl charges, and Stevonnie falls into easy habit. For every strike of a sword, Connie does her part, and for every block, Steven does, giving them a unique, high amount of concentration and multitasking during battle.

It’s as easy as breathing. One pulling in, the other pulling out, then the other way around. Going through the motions. Like a rythmn. Slash, block, slash, block, slash, block.

Even when those were out of rythmn, a supposed slash is simply a short evaluation. No attacks possible now, so once more, their defensive part takes over to make for an opening.

Everything is smooth as glass, until suddenly a part of Connie pushes to block. She can block, of course, well-trained and coordinated. The component that is Steven lets her without question. As easy as breathing. 

It happens, sometimes, when things are too fast.

And sometimes, when Steven’s component feels himself drawn, pulled to take over a slash, a strike, even just a push, they unfuse.

Stevonnie grits their teeth at four holo-pearls. Three were easy, but four at once brought them to their limits.

Slash, block, pause, block, slash, block, slash, pause, slash. Holographic blue charges at them over and over again, and they feel the part of them that is Connie overstretch to block. Even just the moment fills them with pride, the consequence of Steven’s admiration for Connie’s capabilities, defensive and offensive alike.

Despite the inner praise, Connie needs to hold onto Steven as much as he does to her, but his component is pulled in, blocked off, going through the motions. 

Stevonnie slashes at another holo-pearl, the sword hitting it straight in the chest.

Dozens of swirling lights errupt from the broken form.  _ You’re not good enough for her. She just puts up with you. You’re a liar. You’re a murderer. You’re a monster.  _

Stevonnie shakes their head, taking steps back. “No, no… pull it together! Please, Steven, you’re not alone…!”

They stop, Connie’s determination fighting through to make them look up. A massive silhouette of Jasper towers over them, face filled with fear, with terror, tears streaming down her face from glowing orange eyes.

Stevonnie stands, rooted to the ground, trying to hold it together. “Steven…! I can’t do this alone, we have to do this together!”

Their components twist and turn against eachother, barely in balance. A holo-pearl approaches them from the back.

Out of the corner of their eye, Stevonnie sees the blue just a fraction of a second, turning with in instinctive reflex to strike the blue form through the middle as One. Steven, Connie, Stevonnie, all of it.

_ You’ll never be as good as them. _

The holo-pearl buzzes, bursting into millions of lights, coming together to form the massive shape of a butterfly.

_ They saw the truth about you now. _

More of them swirl around, threatening to cover them from head to toe.

_ You’re a diamond. _

Stevonnie struggles, choked down cries as they fight back the lights.

_ You’re weak. _

Like a trigger, the world wraps in pink. Strength rushes through them, into every muscle, every fibre of their being. Dozens of thoughts assault them from within. 

_ Move. Fight. Strike. Prove it. Prove it to them. Prove that you’re not weak. Prove that you won’t let them leave you behind! _

Their components grasp for control as a beastly, a feral kind of anger strikes their core. Anger in it’s purest form, twitching and twisting and snarling.

For a split second, the world flickers back to normal, and they spot a holo-pearl, now motionless, deactivated, standing and watching them.

Rage flares up as they charge, dissapating it with a swift strike. 

_ What was that? It wasn’t even fighting back! _

_ It wasn’t, was it now? _

Something twisted rises within the fusion, anger burning down their walls and limitations, and suddenly it doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is this burning, raging feeling, that feels eternally better than the hollow, carving emptiness of before.

Visions fill their mind, thoughts and memories that should be distant, but feel close enough to touch now.

_ I’m never going back to feeling empty. I don’t care what I have to do! I don’t care what it feels like, I never want to feel like I’m worthless  _ **_ever again!_ **

They raise their sword again, blind with emotion, water running down their face. Did they say that out loud? They can’t tell. A struggeling, guilted, small piece of Steven continues to resist, trying to justify it, trying to justify everything.

_ I’m tired of crying! I’m tired of being left behind, and I’m tired of giving everyone my all for NOTHING!  _

The fusion’s eyes dash around the arena, looking for a target, but none are around. Their sword clatters to the ground, and a pink fist knocks one of the pillars down like a bowling pin.

They look up, and are suddenly met with their own face.

Pink diamond eyes stare back at them, and they gasp, stumbeling back. No, no, no no no… Control. They need control. They glance up from the mirror, and meet the very concerned face of Sardonnyx.

_ No…! Why is she still here? I could hurt her! _

Stevonnie stumbles back, tripping over the sword they dropped and falling backwards onto the cold, stone floor. They rub their head, looking up to see a massive tornado of flickering white lights, stretching upwards into the sky.

With setteling horror, a piece of them does want to hurt them. They whince, curling in on themselves, fighting against that feeling, but it remains. They want to hurt them. For being distant and going on their stupid missions, for brainwashing them into abandoning all of their self-worth for Steven, for leaving them alone for weeks and weeks with no end in sight. 

Connie and Stevens thoughts and angers mix, and they scream and yell as they lay on the ground, kicking about, too afraid to open their eyes to see the butterflies, to see Pearl and Garnet looking down at them with dissapointment.

They finally open their eyes, panting, chest falling and rising as they refuse to move. They uncurl, slowly, another wave of that traiterous energy flowing through their limbs. Their fist hits the stone ground underneath, leaving cracks. They tremble, feel the wave pass. They’re panting again, staring at the smooth cold floor, and recognize their blurred reflection.

Breathe, something in them says. They don’t know what part or component or piece, but they do.

They breathe in, staring at their vague reflection, at the assaulting pink light glaring them down. 

Their face relaxes, and as it does, the glow fades.

They sigh, and with a soft flash of light, unfuse.

Steven gets up with a start, over at Connie before she’s even sat up.

“Connie! I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry, I wasn’t ready, I should’ve controlled it better-”

“Steven.”

He goes quiet, and Connie sits up, placing her hands on his shoulders. “It’s okay. Nothing happened.”

“What do you mean nothing happened! I went into focus while fused with you, I can’t just- do that!”

“We didn’t hurt anyone!”

“You mean I didn’t hurt anyone.”

“No!” Her shout echoes through the empty arena, and they both silently stare at eachother before Connie goes on. “WE didn’t hurt anyone.” She breathes out, leftover frustration still crawling over her. “We were both in focus. I certainly was.”

Her voice is snappier than she wants it to be, and she stands up rapidly. Steven stands up as well, not daring to step closer.

Connie balls her fists, shaking. With a start, she turns around, and grabs Steven’s hand, pulling him with her.

“Connie?”

His question goes unanswered as she pulls him along, starting to jog.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“Jogging. It helps me calm down.”

Steven runs beside her, still gulping down his own frustrations. They run alongisde eachother for a moment, before Connie speeds up, and so does Steven.

She was always more competitive, and Steven only has a limited amount of his gem-magic to give him an advantage in something he does so rarely. They seem evenly matched, slowing down from exhaustion almost at the same time, until finally, Steven comes to a stop, wheezing.

Connie overtakes him a bit before staggering to a halt as well, as spent as he is. She pridefully grins back at him, a few steps ahead.

She throws her hands up. “Woo! I’m a better runner than half-diamond boy Steven Universe!”

Steven laughs, still panting, leaning on his knees. Connie comes up to him, and together they sit down on the massive stairs.

After a while, Connie turns to him, squinting, analysing. “You need some healthy way to work off anger. I tend to move, but I don’t know what works best for you.”

Steven dips his head in agreement, still catching his breath. 

“I never, uh, thought about that.”

“Yeah. Cause you just blame it all on yourself. I felt it”

He frowns. “It’s still my fault that-”

“Being guilty doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work through it.”

He’s quiet for a bit, looking down at his hands. “Hey, Connie?”

“Yeah?”

“It was better, I mean, it was a lot easier to control. With you there.”

“Yeah. Steven?”

“Yeah?”

Her voice is quiet. “I’m glad I got to feel what it’s like.”

“Why?”

“It’s… a lot more compulsive than I thought. I mean! Not that it makes mistakes less bad, but, that isn’t you, you know?”

He looks over to her, out of breath, blinking, staring.

Connie throws him a concerned look. “Steven?”

“I’m fine, I just-” He clears his throat after his voice cracks. “Are you sure it’s not me? I mean, focus is an amplification of-”

She takes his hands in hers. “It’s not. And with enough practice, you’ll have control of it.”

He takes a deep breath, gulps, and then nods. “Thank you. Just… for everything. You’re amazing.”

Connie lets out a shy laugh. “You’re welcome, you goof.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized I forgot to upload the 8th chapter as soon as I finished the 9th, the last one! Ya'll are in for a treat. Expect chapter 9 in a few days after cause I've got 0 patience when it comes to posting! Thank you to everyone who has remained patient with this one!


	9. Chapter 9

Steven wakes up in the middle of the night, cold sweat running down his back.

Something is wrong. He doesn’t know what, but something is wrong.

He makes his way down the stairs, restless and anxious, still pulling his jacket over his shoulders. On the table is an old bouquet from the wedding, wilting pink roses tilting their heads downwards. 

The juice boxes stand on the counter, having been tossed out in favor of stuffing the rest of the cake into the fridge. He looks around the house. The temple door glows with every gem. They’re all still in there.

He steps outside of the house. A soft pink is tinting the horizon. Sunrise is due soon.

The last few stars glitter back at him, saying their silent goodbyes as they fade into the bright of day. 

He leans on the railing, watching soft colors fade into the sky. Be blinks away a dot in his vision.

It’s not going away.

Stumbeling back from the railing, his worst fears confirmed, two massive ships descend onto the planet. He turns and runs into the house.

Multiple fists on the temple door later, the gems step out, and watch him wordlessly run outside. They follow, and stand in shock at the sight above.

Two massive gem ships in the shape of arms, blue and yellow respectively, hover ominously above them.

The gems remain low, but draw their weapons. Steven scrambles for his phone, typing away with panic.

_ Gem invasion at the temple right now. Two huge ships just hovering there... _

He pockets his phone, practically feeling his nerves fraying at the ends. 

Garnet hisses to the gems to hide, pulling Steven with her.

Steven takes out his phone again once they’re out of sight. He looks around. No sign of Connie. His fingers tremble. How is he supposed to do this without her? He types, his fingers cold.

_ I can’t do this without you. _

Scanners depart from the ships, beginning to survey the surroundings. The gems keep him dutifully at the back, covering him, ready to charge to protect him. He feels small. He feels helpless here on his own. The scanners are thorough, and he sees the nervousness on Garnet’s face, her teeth together. If even Garnet is afraid, then…

He types with shaking fingers.

_ I love you. _

He puts his phone away, watching the scanners nearing them.

Pearl turns to them, her own phone in hand, voice quiet. “Lapis, Bismuth and Peridot will be here soon, but I don’t think they can stay hidden for long.”

Garnet turns to her, voice a hissed whisper. “Just tell them to hurry. We can’t hide for long either. We just need to hold out until they get here.”

Pearl nods. Amethyst gives them unsure glances as they sit behind the rock, robonoids swirling ever closer.

Steven clenches his teeth, feeling like an unneccessary accessory behind the gems. The only thing he can do is try to talk this out, like he always does. He takes a quiet, deep breath so the gems don’t hear. It’s what he’s good at. The chances of it working are tiny, but so are the chances of them winning a fight.

He also knows they most certainly wouldn’t approve, but that hasn’t stopped him before.

They watch the two ships descend even further, each touching down one finger onto the beach. When they lift again, two massive figures stand, casting two long, dark shadows onto the house.

Steven stares in shock. The diamonds. He recognizes them from the books, from Pearl’s stories, from the colorful murals painting the walls of important gem structures.

Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond.

Yellow Diamond scans the beach with her eyes as the robonoids continue to scatter out. “We picked up signals just about here, and the entrance point for the cluster isn’t too far either.”

Blue Diamond just nods, eyes following the robonoids with disinterest. Yellow Diamond side-eyes her for a moment before continuing with her screens.

Both their eyes glow their bright respective colors, and they stand, silent and ominous as Yellow Diamond watches the robonoids work. 

Steven knows he has to do something, but his mind is blank. Why are Lapis, Peridot and Bismuth taking so long? Why isn’t Garnet saying anything? Why did they have to come at sunrise at some ungodly hour instead of when Connie could be here to help?

A loud sigh pulls him out of his thoughts. He glances out from the rock to see Blue Diamond’s shoulder slump, and when she opens her eyes, they’re a soft, ocean blue, dark by comparison to what they were before.

She takes another look around, this time eyeing the house with curiosity. 

Yellow throws her a dissaproving glance, clearing her throat, but Blue ignores her. 

Miraculously, the robonoids stop before they can find the Crystal Gems huddled in their hiding spot. Yellow Diamond makes them pull back before speaking up.

“Now, if you’ve said your… goodbyes, Blue, I would like to commence.”

Blue nods, closing her eyes. When she opens them again, they’re glowing once more.

“Of course.”

Yellow Diamond turns her head to glance back at the ship. “Dig up the cluster.”

_ No…! _

Steven begins to stir, and Garnet just barely stops him from jumping out. A moment later, the three barn gems they were waiting for swoosh down to their position, Bismuth and Peridot tightly holding on to Lapis.

Blue Diamond suddenly grabs Yellow’s arm, making her stop and look to where Blue is pointing.

An explosive lightning beam strikes their hiding rock to pieces, sizzling over the sand. 

Oh.

Yellow Diamond calls for her troops, preparing another beam of her own. Blue watches the gems scatter with anger.

“Rebels… on HER planet…! HOW DARE YOU!”

A blue ball of energy flies towards Pearl, who swiftly dodges it. Steven watches, unable to do anything as the gems form Alexandrite. Lapis hauls a massive water mass into the air, ready to fight. Peridot uses her metal shield to fly, giving Bismuth a lift upwards.

And Steven can’t do anything. The shield in his hands is shaking. Alexandrite has to shield him from a blast. Lapis gets poofed and tossed onto the sand, quickly picked up by Peridot.

Yellow is about to open up the ship when Blue stops her. “No. We can take care of a handful of traitors on our own.”

“Blue-”

“Pull back your troops, Yellow.”

Yellow’s eyes flicker for a moment as she reluctantly calls them back, unwilling to break her focus to go against a request from a fellow diamond.

With a powerful forcewave, a dull blue color suddenly floods the world. Alexandrite falls to pieces, and Steven can barely hold himself up. He has to do something. He has to do something, dammit!

He can feel his own energy pulsing underneath, pushing against the blue chains trying to hold him down. He forces himself to stand, going to stand between the gems and the diamonds.

With every step he lets a bit more of that pink energy in, pushes back against the blue energy more. 

Blue Diamond stares down at him in shock, standing strong as the last tear falls from his face and into the sand.

“What? How-?”

Yellow stares in equal confusion, a lightning beam on the ready. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it does!”

The two diamonds turn to the half-gem, but Steven knows Yellow is going to fire either way. He has to be ready. 

For the gems. For his home. For Connie. And maybe for himself, too.

When the lightning beam strikes, it hits a rose-colored shield, bouncing off into the sky. 

When the shield goes down, two pink, glowing diamond eyes stare fearlessly up at the massive gems above.

With a start, both the diamonds lose their focus, staring down at the sight below them.

Blue is the first to find her words. “Pink...?”

Steven can feel anger rushing up to his head, strength and energy buzzing in his veins. They hurt his friends. They were going to hurt his planet. HIS planet! 

He takes sharp breaths in. They still think he’s Pink Diamond, too. His frame shakes, and he can feel the hurricane threatening to spiral out of control.

_ Breathe _ , he reminds himself.  _ Breathe. _

So he breathes, steadily in, and steadily back out.

His first few breaths feel forced and pointless, but somewhere at the fourth, he feels himself start to calm down.

He’s not quite like Connie, not quite relieved by running himself dry. His gem means there’s always more energy to go, always more to do. What he has to do is steady himself.

He looks up, feeling his focus pull itself into shape.  _ I need to make sure they don’t hurt anybody. _

He could poof them. Or- No.

_ I need to make sure they understand. _

“I’m not Pink! I have her gem, but I’m not her.”

The two diamonds stare at him in confusion. Blue touches Yellow’s shoulder, and Yellow lowers another beam she had prepared in her shock.

Yellow’s voice is sharp and motherly. “What do you mean you’re not her?! Pink, I can’t believe you’re- after all of the pain we went through!”

“I’M NOT PINK!”

The world rumbles at the roar, and Steven once more forces himself to breathe. This isn’t who he fully is. He can be who he wants to be. He can choose to be who he wants to be.

“Pink is gone. I don’t have any of her memories. But I need you to listen to me!”

Blue cuts in. “Listen to you? Pink, we have to bring you back! We have to restore your memories if you’ve lost them, we-”

“NO! You don’t have to do anything!”

Yellow gives a tsk. “Of course we do! We have to tell White about this as we’re ordered to, we have to bring you back and-”

“You don’t have to. You have to do what’s right!”

Yellow goes on like a mother scolding her child. “Pink, we have to focus and then we will inevitably bring you back. This is not in our hands. We would like to do as you wish, but we simply can’t.”

“Don’t pretend this has nothing to do with you. I’m focused right now, and I can do whatever I want!”   


The two diamonds do turn their attention to him, staring back into pink eyes. They share a look, unsure what to say.

Yellow thinks for a moment. “Well, I’m sure whatever rejuvenation process you went through must have…Well…”

Steven gives a long sigh. “Exactly. Look at the gems, too! Gems can take control of their focus. You’re not forced to do anything! You can’t place ALL the blame on White, especially not after today. Especially not after Pink ran away from you!”

The two diamonds stare him down, taken aback. Silence stretches over the beach. The blue aura had faded from the air, and the gems had gathered around Steven once more, standing their ground.

Steven goes on, voice firm, his focus beginning to waver and wear off already. He doesn’t like putting it like this, but… “I chose this planet. I chose to treat it differently, and I chose to treat the gems here differently no matter what my focus tells me. There’s more to gems than what they’re for! I choose to treat my friends better because that’s who I want to be.”

He stares up at them in defiance. “You can disagree, but I’m not backing down.” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t want to fight you, but I will if I have to. I just… want you to understand.”

The two diamonds stare down at him, more tears already gathering in Blue’s eyes. She gives a long sigh, voice weak and breaking. “We would never fight you.”

Yellow just watches silently as Blue sits down to pick Steven up in her hands. Steven manages to barely tell the gems not to attack as Blue gently holds him, pressing him to her face.

“I missed you so much…”

Yellow sees the sight and finally falters, ordering the ships to stand by until further notice.

\---

\------

\---

The warming scent of pancakes fills the kitchen. Steven hands a plate to Connie, who takes it with a smile and carries it to the table where the gems are sitting.

She joins back with Steven in the kitchen a moment later, watching him start making another batch. He’s wearing a pink apron with a purple heart at the front, humming softly while he cooks. 

How on earth did she get lucky enough to know someone like Steven, unafraid to be who he is and care for everyone around him without any hint of shame or hurt pride?

Garnet, Pearl, Amethyst, Lapis, Peridot and Bismuth all sit at the kitchen table in the new and improved house, now large enough for everyone. The newer trio still prefers their barn, but they’ve been severely upgrading it as well.

Steven finishes another batch, bringing it over to the table with Connie. They both sit down, and the gems interrupt their chatter to give them warm smiles.

They eat, or at least most of them do. Pearl is content in taking in the scent of the pancake and then sliding it over to Amethyst, for example.

The evening would’ve been completely normal if it weren’t for some of the travelling bags already piled up near the doorway. Steven tries to ignore them, but his eyes go back to them over and over.

“Nervous about your trip?”

Pearl’s voice makes him look back to the table. Was it really that obvious?

“A little bit,” he admits, staring at his honey-covered pancakes.

“I’m sure it will go alright with the diamonds on your side. Just don’t bite off more than you can chew, and you can always come back to us.”

Garnet gives him a small smile. “Pearl’s right. We’ll be here whenever you need us. Homeworld is important, but so is your wellbeing.”

“Thanks, guys.” 

Steven continues to eat. He was going to start on the massive task of restructuring an entire empire piece by piece to make it a better place for every gem in there. The diamonds weren’t going to be easy to work with, but he does have hope for them.

And if there’s hope for them, well, it’s suffice to say that there’s certainly a lot of hope for him. Especially here, surrounded by the people that mean the most to him, by a family that loves him the way he is and is ready to help him however they can.

It’s not a perfect happily ever after, but so long as he can make everyone happy, he’ll take it.

  
  


Somewhere far away, a good distance from the house, an orange gem watches the smoke leaving the chimney from her den in the forest. The red stripe across Jasper’s face is fractured, a testament to her experience, but she sits whole.

She stares at the barren ground in front of her, hands still dirty from uprooting everything living that is around. The forest is quiet for the most part, nothing more than the cold wind and the rustle of the leaves to accompany her thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S FINALLY DONE!
> 
> Thank you SO MUCH for everyone who commented on this fic and stuck around till the end! I know it took me a while to finish, but I hope it was worth the wait!
> 
> I screamed the title at myself more times than I dare to count, lol. But I'm glad I pulled this through, especially for all the nice people who have been commenting and reading!
> 
> It just feels great to have finished something tbh like woah.
> 
> If you have any other unresolved open questions, feel free to ask now! Oftentimes there is more plot planned out than is actually written in the end, along with details I thought of that never really became relevant.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to Kudos!
> 
> Comments and feedback of all kinds are warmly appreciated!


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